Carrying heavy combat loads is taking a quiet but serious toll on troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, contributing to injuries that are sidelining them in growing numbers, according to senior military and defense officials.

I was a motivated, resilient second lieutenant when I deployed to Iraq for 10 months, traveling across the Marine area of operations (AO) and participating in numerous combat operations. Yet, due to the excessive amount of time I spent in full combat load, I was diagnosed with a severe case of restless leg syndrome. My spine had compressed on nerves in my lower back causing neuropathy…

218 Responses to Fantasy vs reality.

Women in combat seems like a stupid idea to me, but if there are women who can meet the standards then let them. I doubt tht there are man who can manage it. I’ve got no interest in being shot at personally.

PFC B. Summers: Captain Steinem! Captain Steinem!
Capt. G. Steinem: Yes, private, what is it?
PFC B.S.: I just can’t carry this pack any further today! It weighs 30 lbs and we’ve already gone 10 miles! I need some help here.
Capt. G. Steinem: Private Austin!
PFC Steve Austin: Yes ma’am!
Capt. G.S.: Can’t you see Private Summers is having some difficulty here? What do you think you are, an army of one? This unit relies on teamwork! Why aren’t you helping her out?
PFC Austin: Permission to speak freely, ma’am.
Capt. G.S.: Granted.
PFC Austin: Ma’am, I’m carrying an eighty pound pack of my own. I’ve already had to ditch half my ammunition to carry extra water for Private Summers. If I carry any more of her gear I’m going to have to leave behind either the rest of my ammunition or a sizable portion of our water.
Capt. G.S.: PFC Austin, that is not an acceptable attitude! You need to man up! Quite frankly, if I didn’t need you to carry this gear for us, I’d have you court martialed. And until you get your mind right, you can forget about any chance at promotion! Do I make myself clear?
PFC Austin: Yes ma’am!
PFC B. S.: Here, Private Austin, I’ll need you to carry this package of maxi-pads, my Xanax and Albutrol bottles, these extra MREs, these canteens of water, and my binoculars.
PFC Austin: Captain Steinem, ma’am?
Captain Steinem: Yes, Private Austin?
PFC Austin: What should I do with the ammunition?
Captain Steinem: Just leave it. We shouldn’t be needing it.
PFC Austin: But what if we encounter the enemy, ma’am?
Captain Steinem: You’ve got twenty rounds in your rifle, soldier. If you can’t handle the enemy with that, what are you doing out here? Good grief, I can’t believe the way you men always bitch and moan. Now man up and grab that gear!

For sure, women in infantry combat positions presents the problem of many, probably most, women simply being unable to meet the physical demands of it. Even a fit, well conditioned, physically in shape woman can be easily overpowered by a man of even average conditioning and strength. This is because average men have more body mass, more muscle mass and more circulating testosterone than even conditioned female athletes.

But here are other problems, from what I’ve heard from others in the military:

1. Infantry soldiers have to look out for themselves, but also others. Often called on to pull and move injured soldiers from place to place; often called on to cover for others. Many women probably can’t meet that demand.

2. Men have a natural instinct to protect women around them; and women have a natural instinct to look to surrounding men for protection. That’s not going to work in a firefight in which a man will sometimes have to look to a woman with more experience or rank to protect him. It’s not going to work when a woman will have to protect men, when her natural instinct is to seek shelter from other men.

3. Anyone think about sexual attraction? The top men will vie for her. She’ll f*ck whoever she wants on the down low. This will create AMOGing galore over the scant p*ssy in the platoon, resentment among the losers, and distraction among the winners for who is f*cking GI Jane and how often and how well. What if she gets pregnant in the field or in a combat zone, away from necessary medical care? What if she is pregnant while a POW?

4. The political optics of women in combat. Women’s bodies blown apart with bullets and shells. Male soldiers watching women’s bodies blown apart in combat. Women’s bodies (or what’s left of their bodies) returning home in body bags and flag-draped coffins. Women returning home with missing limbs and eyes. Film of women taken as POWs, undergoing torture and inhumane prison conditions. Women as POWs will almost certainly be raped (and I mean really raped). Women undergoing treatment for PTSD, exposure to chemicals, and other disorders and ailments.

Wow, that Marine Lt really has her head on straight. I’m sorry that she became infertile as a result of her service, and I’m glad that she was successful. I find it wonderful that as successful as she was, she clearly recognizes that she wasn’t even fully exposed to the full combat load of work that the average infantryman was. She knows that men have set the bar for what is physically demanded in a combat operation because they are being tested against other men. To introduce a less capable soldier simply to appease equality is to guarantee a less capable unit and increase casualties.

In the face of large looming cuts to the defense budget, these leftist twits decided to spend a bunch of money (and it will cost a bunch) re-jiggering combat infantry to accommodate a handful of affirmative-action headcases that will then be used to promulgate feminist lies.

I’ve been following this alot in the Army Times. I get so pissed reading that rag anymore. The Army has definitely been turned into a feminist hotbed. In the same issue you can read about how every female soldier in the Army is a victim of harrassment/assault/rape and yet they are all tough go getters fully capable of the most demanding combat role.

My observations have led me to conclude that womyn in combat arms are the new womyn in college. It is the new feminist merit badge. Lots of talk. No walk.

I will do my best to remain civil during this topic. I take it quite personally. But at this point, I’m ready to embrace the suck. Maybe thats what we need, piles of pink body bags to finally lay to rest this equality crap.

Do not expect logic or reason out of the military community. It is a total lost cause. Too many years of EO training, harassment training, political correctness, and other sundry BS. It is no almost 100% comprised of white knights led by beuracrats and manginas.

“2. Men have a natural instinct to protect women around them; and women have a natural instinct to look to surrounding men for protection. That’s not going to work in a firefight in which a man will sometimes have to look to a woman with more experience or rank to protect him. It’s not going to work when a woman will have to protect men, when her natural instinct is to seek shelter from other men.”

Don’t most people’s instincts tell them to flee danger when possible? I thought that a big part of training them was so that they would keep their heads and follow orders when they are in danger instead of going with their natural instincts whether those instincts are fight, flight or protection of others.

All of his sci-fi flicks and tv shows (which i have a guilty pleasure in viewing) all feature tough as nails chicks who kick men’s asses on a regular basis, solve the worlds problems, and generally just put men to shame.

WHen it comes to protecting women, instinct will override training — particularly among a female soldier and her secret lover(s). Make no mistake about it — a few female combat soldiers around all that testosterone is sure to start tingling; and she’ll act on it because she can. Unit cohesion goes out the window when the AMOG who is f*cking GI Jane feels the need to white knight for her and protect her. And then he is out of commission because he has to mourn her death after watching her bleed out on the battlefield.

Yeah, mortarmanmike, I also have a personal interest in this. The problem is that the Army is a bureaucracy that routinely ignores its personnel. Here is the lie that the Military believes. It is a subtle, unspoken lie but a lie all the same. The lie is this; you can control people’s actions. While other people might think they can, we (the military) knows we can. We can make them show up on weekends, deploy and face down danger. The truth is that people, even soldiers, make bad decisions that cannot be prevented. Every close-out formation is “Don’t drink and drive” and yet it still happens. The belief in this lie has resulted in the concept that “Yes, we can have women do anything a man does” even though they physically can’t. “Yes we can station men and women together and prevent them from P in V” even though that happens all the time. The people on the top are so far divorced from the process of what happens on the ground that there are no consequences for them when we are sent into danger. If they had to rely on us daily for safety, they would be singing a different tune.

So be it. If it takes women coming home in body bags, I guess that’s what it will take.

Not to mention when some of the post mortems show some of the dead soldiers were pregnant when killed.

Not to mention when some of the soldiers are out of commission mourning the deaths of their lovers killed in battle.

Not to mention the destruction of unit cohesion caused by women chasing top alphas, and the alphas peacocking and AMOGing and trying to get laid by the nearby available p*ssy when they are supposed to be killing the enemy and breaking their shit.

Not to mention some of the women who will cause the deaths of other men through incompetence, or poor training, or inability to do the job, or standing around shrieking at the incoming fire when what they are supposed to do is return fire and support their compatriots, oblivious to the death, destruction, mayhem and exploded bodies all around them.

This will be the only way America stops trying to create wars around the world. Men getting blown up is no big deal…the harpies will scream when women start getting picked off.

I think there is a very common misconception regarding what this is really all about. This isn’t about putting women in combat, or even “proving” that women can do it. This is about making sure there isn’t something special about men. They don’t need piles of pink body bags, and they don’t need women meeting the real standards to get into infantry and special ops groups. What they need is a woman who looks just butch enough marching alongside the men, and to then have her travel the country talking to high school students explaining that women and men are the same. But none of this means that men aren’t still the ones who will be expected to fight and die in a war. Once you accept this everything they do which seems so nonsensical suddenly makes sense. They know they can’t be men, and they don’t really want to be men. At the macro level (which is what this is really all about) what we are dealing with is jealousy not envy. They want men to keep being men, they just don’t want men to be proud to be men.

In practice this will mean some number of women will be placed into as many “combat” roles as they can fudge, and this will mean even more absurd levels of rationalization. Then once the women are officially “in the unit”, they will make sure the women tag along on the missions while staying safely out of the way of the men who will be expected to do the real work. However, critical to this bit of feminist theater is to swear up and down that she really is one of the guys, and so there will also be long yarns spun about the heroic acts of valor the token female soldiers displayed. Men who refuse to play along or at least remain silent will be disciplined and if they don’t comply ultimately be run out of the service. In some cases women will display incredible tenacity, selflessness, and courage; but this isn’t the point so feminists will be as uninterested in this distinction as they were when they made Amelia Earhart a national hero for allowing a man to fly her across the Atlantic.

I don’t give a flying fuck at a rolling burrito about the women who get killed because they can’t hack it. They believe in stupid things, and life generally punishes those who believe stupid things. The stupid do not need my condemnation or scorn; life will dole out punishment adequate for their errors. I do however care about the men who get killed because we have to engage in this. Infantry combat – and armored and artillery service to a lesser extent – primarily involve the moving of heavy shit from one location to another, whether it’s track sections in a motor pool, loading shells into the vehicle, or hauling a basic load plus the mortar plate and two rounds. You can ameliorate the heavy load but in the end, you can’t eliminate it. Jenny may max her PT test. She may (1 in 1000, in my military experience) even score decently on the men’s test. But if she’s that fit, she’s 108 pounds, and in no shape to carry 70 pounds before taking on the squad load (extra MG or mortar ammo, the MG or mortar parts themselves, wood, shovel, axes, whatever else is needed for digging in. This is before we get to the actual fighting part. Fighting is not pulling a trigger; it’s getting into the right place where you can pull the trigger, throw the grenade, or beat the other chap (who is your size, and attacking you with homicidal intent) into a pulp or kill him. The GI Jane fantasy is simply insane; anything near an ordinary woman does not go through a few months of training – or several years – and suddenly have a Rambo like ability to go around kicking men’s asses. It does not happen. What we will get instead is a bunch of weaker women in these positions, and their squadmates – being good soldiers – will cover for them. One guy will get two extra boxes of MG ammo, another will get three mortar rounds instead of two, everybody will be covering – and slower to react, more tired and more worn down than they should be; if hit, there will be fewer people capable of moving them quickly to safety, and they will get hit again when their weak rescuers move slowly. I feel for those men, because some of them are going to get killed by the weak link in their unit, inflicted on them by our insane politics. Nevermind unit cohesion, which is going to be screwed up by this, at least in normal line units.

When we gender norm the infantry, we will be faced with two choices. Build the fitness testing around actual job requirements, including mixed-gender hand-to-hand combat, load carrying, moving with speed while carrying a load and so forth – or gender norm it because an acceptable number of women, say 50%, can’t pass the “men’s test.” I know full well what way our absolutely gutless, insane and callous national leadership will turn.

I served in combat in an infantry division, with a cav unit and mixed units, where we had some women around. They were fine soldiers up to a point, but when it takes four of them to change a Humvee tire, versus one or two men, the math is clear. When two of them cannot even budge a 300 pound track section from the ground, a section that a tanker typically grabs the end of and drags up the motor the problem is obvious. Nevermind the physical confrontation subduing enemy troops in close quarters.

Don’t get me wrong. Women serve honorably and I think very fondly of the 50% or so of them that I knew who performed really well in Combat Support and Combat Services Support roles. You can even carry some female troops in MP units. But line combat duty is not military policing or field intelligence collection or brigade level signals work. It is extremely heavy duty stuff, particularly against an enemy that works into the civilian population and requires sorting out by hand, lest we use standoff weapons and pile up civilian casualties. Men are just bigger and stronger than women, and it will take exceptional effort to train up exceptional women, in order to perform physically as well as the weakest, ordinarily trained man. It isn’t hard to see where this is going; this ends in a lot of dead soldiers, male and female, and I find it disgusting we’d be asked to sacrifice our sons, like Abraham, except on an altar of politically correction hallucinations.

@mmm – But at this point, I’m ready to embrace the suck. Maybe thats what we need, piles of pink body bags to finally lay to rest this equality crap.
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It would be bad enough if that’s all that would happen. How about the soldiers that are stuck with these special snowflakes supposedly watching their flanks or on overwatch? If it were just a matter of pink bodybags coming home, as I say, that would be bad enough. But it won’t be just pink. More soldiers will die so some femk*nt can feel all warm and fuzzy about wymynz being all equal and sh!t.

Well, now the the ban on women serving in combat roles has been lifted I wonder if Colonel Ellen Haring, the woman responsible for the lawsuits against the Pentagon, will be just as aggressively file suit to mandate that all women 18 years of age must sign up for Selective Service before they’re allowed to be eligible for social services, financial aid for college and all of the other government and state benefits denied to men who do not.

Pay no attention to the feminine imperative behind the curtain there,..

@ dalrock – ” They want men to keep being men, they just don’t want men to be proud to be men”

Now that’s interesting. I never thought that insisting on equal rights for women in these areas was about eliminating masculine pride. I thought that it was people letting the principle of equality over ride common sense.

Now I see (the extra message at 11.29 am) what Dalrock is getting at. I am thus reminded that American Philosopher F. Roger Devlin, describes Feminism, simply, as ‘Envy of the Male Role’. The Military is a perfect example in support of that view; though, is anyone really fooled? A more insidious example, where it is not quite so obvious that Women are not fully-fitted, and where many of the consequences so ably set out by Deti at 10.43 am also occur is of course The Law: Dear God, may I never again have to endure a Female Lawyer, bursting into tears, taking the loss of a court-case as Misogyny directly aimed at her, and of course – our old friend – gratuitous sexual-advances/false sexual-advance allegations.

We averaged 150 pounds of gear when my bosses in the 1/504th studied our combat load. Good luck humping that up and down the mountains of a-stan

I weigh 230 pounds, plus my equipment. Going to be even fewer gashes who can haul a wounded man to safety. Thank the Almighty I’m done with it all and may He keep all the grunts left in safe from their civilian/ senior leadership

My guess is, chicks will get a lot of staff assignments like the s3 shop, co’s driver etc and that Dalrock has the right of it in how it will play out. And oh joy the sexual harassment cases. Not to many folks more rude and crude then 20 year old paratroopers were cursing is high art

@ Solomon – I don’t think that someone insisting on equal rights for women is automatically seeking dominance although in some cases they certainly are. In this case it’s quite likely that there is an ulterior motive because there is no sensible reason for women to serve in combat. In some situations it was just women seeking the right to live their lives without male interference.

I wonder if Colonel Ellen Haring, the woman responsible for the lawsuits against the Pentagon, will be just as aggressively file suit to mandate that all women 18 years of age must sign up for Selective Service

I have never thought about that before. Is the restriction on females in combat the only reason why we are exempted from Selective Service? Have any women been vocally seeking SS registration for women before now?

What I find curious is that. This announcement came one day before N. Korea making noise about a third nuclear weapons test, and generally upping the ante. I’m willing to bet money the brass knew about NK before the press release.

That “She’ll kick your butt” article is a feat of doublethink and obfuscation.

On the one hand, a lot of girl-power cheering for the women who can meet the physical standards, even though they’re likely to be lower than the male standards. Irrelevant comparisions about how an average female soldier will kick the butt of an average male civilian, or how “an elite female athlete can outperform the average male soldier easily in many ways,”

On the other hand, it’s dismissive of the physical standards when they don’t suit the agenda – a lot of talk about horses for courses and drawing on a broad pool of talent, and a suggestion that women don’t need to be as strong as men because of their superior teamwork skills – “Example after example can be found of women exceeding the expectations of their physical capabilities, finding work-arounds for heavy tasks, or teaming with their co-workers to complete their assignments to best effect”.

[t]he existence of the combat restrictions clearly indicates the basis for Congress’ decision to exempt women from registration. The purpose of registration was to prepare for a draft of combat troops. Since women are excluded from combat, Congress concluded that they would not be needed in the event of a draft, and therefore decided not to register them.

Selective service discrimination will not last through the first court challenge and we are already working with American MRAs to start the legal challenge process. Rest assured, your daughters will be draft eligible.

“Colonel Ellen Haring, the woman responsible for the lawsuits against the Pentagon,”

i think i spotted that bird on AC360 yesterday on CNN. She kept flapping on about how this will now lead to opening up spots for women to blah blah blah and the whole time i was thinking to myself..

“where are all these line ups of women wanting to fill these spots?”

Let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t about fighting to give a majority of women what they want.. it’s about giving the tiny minority the right to play gi joe with the boys because they’re too ashamed of being women to begin with. And the day selective service is forced upon women because of these minority twats.. there will be much crying and wailing in the streets.

Any woman still fighting for “rights” isn’t fighting for rights, she is fighting for more privilege.

You cannot move to end ‘patriarchy’ without also promoting matriarchy. SOMEONE has to be in charge.

If women wanted equal rights, for real, they’d fight for men to have the right to have a say in whether or not his child is aborted. Do you see ANY woman, anywhere, working for that kind of ‘equality’? Of course not- they do not want men making decisions like that, or having that authority. THEY want the authority. Women fight fascism with fascism as though it were going to make fascism go away.

Huh, I just looked it up, and the Supreme Court ruled that women don’t have to register for SS because they aren’t allowed in combat. But Panetta is quoted as saying he doesn’t know who controls SS and that those people will have to think very carefully about their decision. That made me laugh.

@ Solomon – I agree that women already have equal rights. I do not think that we have more than equal rights. For example in your abortion example, men and women both have right to control their own bodies. Giving men the legal right to decide whether or not an abortion takes place would be giving men more than equal rights in addition to being impractical for a variety of reasons.

You see in girl-world, women given the option to fight and die in combat is a civil rights victory; one i have no doubt will be included in the next End of Men, feminist triumphalism article in The Atlantic. However, replace that option with a mandate to fight and die in combat and the harpies cease to screech.

It’s just like Dalrock described on my blog about a year ago, the feminine imperative wants to live in a comfortable theme park where all the rides seem to be actually dangerous, but in the back of her head she knows it’s really safe when she gets to frightened.

Read the trans. or listen. The motivation of lifting this ban, of the litigation against the Pentagon, had far less to do with the microscopic percentage of women seeking (or even being qualified for) active combat duty, but had everything to do with women being able to advance into higher ranks of authority. If Colonel Haring could’ve found a litigious workaround to allow women to get to higher rank that didn’t include women actually fighting and dying, trust me, that would’ve been the tact she’d have used.

I think there is a very common misconception regarding what this is really all about. This isn’t about putting women in combat, or even “proving” that women can do it. This is about making sure there isn’t something special about men. […] They know they can’t be men, and they don’t really want to be men. At the macro level (which is what this is really all about) what we are dealing with is jealousy not envy. They want men to keep being men, they just don’t want men to be proud to be men.

Great comment. I would only add that an awful lot of men don’t want men to be proud of being men, either. I’m sure some hate to hear one more time about The Abolition of Man, but within that short tome CSL writes about the problem that (since the horrors and fallout of WWI) British soldiers are not allowed to be proud of doing a good job killing the enemy into surrender; how modernity carves the heart out of men.

Yeah, I read a piece in the paper recently about women in combat roles. It turned my stomach that more male lives will be put at risk while incompetent, underprepared, incapable “strong women” get their “equal rights” so the feminists can have their symbolic victory.

Even Israel doesn’t have women in active combat. The so-called Caracal Battalion which is lauded as a combat unit with 70% female membership is a large-scale feminist PR machine. They are stationed on the basically backwater Jordanian border hunting down “refugees” who are trying to cross the border. They made national news last year when they killed 1 terrorist. Yes, that’s right, 1 terrorist. It’s the only person they managed to kill in 12 years of active duty. They also suffered 1 casualty and 1 wounded in the operation. Whoops.

The thing that annoys me most about the US argument against female combat roles posed by Miss Petronio is that it’s basically another “because it hurts the wimminz.” And she isn’t even against combat roles, merely infantry. In other words, the women get to sit safely in their M113 APCs with the mechanized cavalry and engineering corps sipping coffee while the men are packed into HumVees praying not to hit a surprise exploding “pothole.” No guts, no glory women. Either you’re a soldier or you’re not. Every male Marine is a fighting Marine. Why should you be any exception?

@SSM, imagine the day when a woman is denied federal or state financial aid for school for failing to register with SS. Imagine the day when a woman is turned down for a work permit, L.L.C. status, AFDC, a contractors license, even a driver’s license in some states, all because she didn’t want to share the risk men have had to for generations.

I guarantee you this will never be the case in girl-world. No woman will take it up, and no male legislator would even dream writing that bill.

She told me the following about her experiences: “I was stunned. The Army was a vast day-care center, full of unmarried teen-age mothers using it as a welfare home. I took training seriously and really tried to keep up with the men. I found I couldn’t. It wasn’t even close. I had no idea the difference in physical ability was so huge. There were always crowds of women sitting out exercises or on crutches from training injuries.

“Taisey served as Liz Belzer’s subcommander on the plebe detail last summer. When he was initially assigned the position, he attempted to resign from the detail, which is a voluntary program. Taisey claimed that Belzer’s appointment was political, and said that he wanted no part of it. His resignation was rejected.
“It was a token staff, from the word go. Belzer was the token woman, I was the token ex-enlisted Marine, we had a token ex-enlisted sailor, a token black, and a token high-school product. That’s just the way it is now.”

Taisey and Belzer argued frequently over the summer about women at the Academy. When the detail was over, Belzer marked Taisey deficient in a number of areas, giving him two Ds on his leadership evaluation. Taisey, who had an exemplary two-year enlisted career and is currently ranked first out of thirty midshipmen inside his own company, is amazed. “I’m going to frame the evaluation. She wrote that I would have scored higher if I could have gotten along better with women. Can you imagine what would have happened if things had been reversed, and I had written a chit like that on her for not being able to get along with men?””

Great Grandfather Opus’ Uncle was (like so many of Opus’ ancestors) a soldier. This is what, as a young Lieutenant he did and in the heat of the sun (so hot indeed, I am told, that just to go out of the shade, one sweats) and in uniform. The place was Lucknow: the Year 1857. There was no man’s land between him and the enemy. About one hundred yards inside the said no man’s land was a dead British soldier. He knew that if the enemy acquired that dead body, it would be mutilated, and so – as a good Christian – and beyond the call of duty he ran out into no-man’s land to retrieve the dead body. Having placed the body on his shoulders he ran back to his lines. As this was happening and duly inspired, his Seargeant also ran out so as to assist, but he was shot in the process. Having deposited the dead body of the first soldier, he ran back for a second time to help his Seargeant who was now also dead and performed the same operation for him, though himself being severely injured himself in the process. It is perhaps also worth mentioning that at this time – before his bravery – he must have doubted that he had long to live as there was no sign of the siege at Lucknow being lifted. He survived; Major Colin Campbell happily arrived to lift the seige; he regained full health and was to retire having ultimately attained the rank of General: His V.C. is held in The Army Museum.

Can you see any woman performing or even contemplating performing the same feat? Well can you?

I guarantee you this will never be the case in girl-world. No woman will take it up, and no male legislator would even dream writing that bill.

But now that women are allowed in combat, the entire rationale of the Supreme Court’s argument is gone. They will have to include women in SS. I can’t imagine how they would justify not doing so.

But it’s ludicrous. The best of the best women *might* be able to keep up with men in battle, but if we had a draft, it would just be average girls. They will be more of a hindrance than a help and probably cause more, rather than fewer, men to be killed. This is why I have always supported the ban on women in combat. Now that the ban is lifted, women should be required to register.

But drafting women would be such a failure. Those who don’t want to go would simply get pregnant as soon as possible. What will they do, send fat, pregnant girls to war? This whole thing is an absurdity.

“…. After learning that he would not be able to hire the engine crew he had trained and worked with over the past three years, he was ordered to take on several women.

Despite the extra physical drilling the agency granted the new hires, Shaw’s bull** detector went off immediately. He instinctively knew that very few of them would develop the strength and stamina necessary to haul a fifty-foot length of fire hose up a slope. For the next several years it became routine for him to order his female crew members back down the hill to stand by, while he and his two firemen held off the blaze until one or more other engine units arrived.

Most of the women did not stay long in the most grueling jobs, but they were invariably replaced by others overwhelmed by the tasks. Shaw was eventually denied a position as fire management officer. He said a much less qualified woman was chosen instead. He told Burchfield:

No one had any respect for her; no one had any respect for fire management; no one had any respect for the Forest, and no respect for the agency. It all drained away.

Ironically, affirmative action made for a level of hostility toward female employees that did not exist before. Sensitivity training became standard.”

imagine the day when a woman is denied federal or state financial aid for school for failing to register with SS. Imagine the day when a woman is turned down for a work permit, L.L.C. status, AFDC, a contractors license, even a driver’s license in some states, all because she didn’t want to share the risk men have had to for generations.

I guarantee you this will never be the case in girl-world. No woman will take it up, and no male legislator would even dream writing that bill.

It won’t happen in girl world, but it doesn’t mean they won’t write the bill or that the courts won’t force “equality”. However, this will just be more of the same. There is no reason for women to fear that they might really be drafted and forced into harm’s way. If there ever were a serious need for a draft this would be a dire emergency. In that kind of emergency they will suddenly “discover” that women can’t possibly meet the actual requirements of front line combat. Anyone who challenges this will be met with What is the matter with you? Don’t you know how much weight these troops have to carry? They will keep the appearance of having women be drafted and sent to combat, and the few tokens who want the positions will still go and have yarns spun around them (and a few will actually be the real deal but feminists will continue not to care). But 99% of the “persons” drafted and sent into battle will end up being male, just like 90% of the “parents” who get custody in our theoretically neutral family court process end up being female.

I think that a draft is unlikely. In the unlikely event that people were drafted I doubt that it would mean that they would pick random people, and stick them in positions that they weren’t qualified to fill with no regard for their abilities. The average man isn’t combat ready, much less the average woman. I don’t think that by allowing women in combat they are lowering the requirements for the position. If a woman can’t meet the requirements they’ll have her doing something else. I wouldn’t be surprised if they made women register for selective service and if nothing came of it. No one is getting drafted anyway.

T- don’t know if you know any soldiers, but my experience is that there is no safer place for a woman to be than with a bunch of 11 Bravos (infantrymen). They take care of women that they regard as being in their circle. I don’t see that changing just because a woman is fighting by their side.
I wonder how units will change…. infantrymen share foul stories, ruthlesslessly tease and haze each other, and beat the crap out of each other for fun. Will that have to change because a delicate flower who wants to fight is offended?

If you scan the bestseller list, or peruse the aisle at the grocer or Walmart, the majority of the action/crime/spy fiction is now written by women, and has a female protagonist.

Similarly, the male writers now feel compelled to have the ass kicking Trinity type character (since we love The Matrix), or think Lizbeth Salander the 90 lb 4’11” gal from The Dragon Tattoo books who beats the shit out of a bunch of men….sadly, these notions lather up the desires of even more feminine women to live these things vicariously, yes, surrounded by Sully type men (Petraeus).
Others are just painfully confused about what they can and cannot do, never happy to have what they have to be good at, wanting what someone else is good at lest they be held back.

In that kind of emergency they will suddenly “discover” that women can’t possibly meet the actual requirements of front line combat. Anyone who challenges this will be met with….

Will be met with the comment Don’t you know that the country we’re fighting against doesn’t have comprehensive legislation against Violence Against Women and Sexual Assault laws defining rape as anything a woman says it is?! We can’t send women into battle there! What if they’re captured? They might be sexually harrassed!

I read you Dal, but the meat of the matter is about women rising into the ranks of General, courtesy of the option to fight, not the obligation. The only reason this ban was lifted was in the interests of lifting more women to those ranks, similar to the conditions in politics, religion, business, etc. The military is just the last hold out. These female Generals will be established when a situation arises that warrants a draft. Whether or not thy’re fit for that duty is debatable, but the fact will remain that they rose to those ranks when Selective Service registration was mandatory for men and not for women.

T- You are clueless and determined to stay that way, it appears. So… are you a troll or someone with a room temperature IQ?

There is a world of difference between a man and a woman, physically. The average man isn’t combat ready, but can become ready in a matter of weeks. That’s what boot camp does. The average woman simply cannot perform at that physical level, ever. Even an exceptional woman will not be able to handle it for long. It’s a matter of testosterone and body mass.

I am retired military, a fat widower with grandkids. My knees (and left hip) are toast, I can no longer run. I would still be able to better perform as infantry than 99.9% of the women as I can still pick up 100 pounds and march. I’d be popping Motrin, but I’d do it.

As our host states, this is about reducing men’s stature. It goes along with women demanding and getting access to every men-only club and function, without giving any of their women-only groups up.

Any unit certain to be involved in combat will qualify any women placed in their midst. I need to explain what I mean by qualify.

These women will be hazed mercilessly by their fellow soldiers in order to find their breaking point. Not to make them go away but to know how they will really act when exposed to extreme stress. If they go away while being hazed then that’s a bonus. If they are smart about it, it will be a normal part of that unit’s training.

The women that stay will likely mentally become men. It will be the only way to cope. I’m not talking about the over compensating male facsimile personality that some women put on while in the military. I mean think like and act like men even going so far as to begin to hate the feminine parts of themselves. I don’t they will be totally successful but they will try.

We’ve seen some of this in the broader society but the depth of what I’m talking about will be much deeper, it won’t be some bratty play acting that can’t stand up to real opposition. They will know in their bones that if they don’t do things right people will die. The good ones will subsume their feminine sides very deeply. That it will damage them for any other use will be a side effect, criminal but a side effect.

Androgynous looking women will do better than curvy women. If you can see a woman as just another guy it makes it much easier to work with them in a combat environment as if they are just another guy.

These units will end up killing or maiming some of these women. Many will die just by accident. Being fragile means things that only hurt a man will kill a woman. If a particular woman becomes an intractable problem in regards to unit readiness she just might get maimed “by accident”.

Here’s a longer explanation. Women are easier to provoke. Once her fellow soldiers figure out her buttons it then becomes easy to provoke her. If you want her gone all you gotta do is get her mad enough. She strikes or mouths off to a superior officer and bam, she’s outta there.

My main message here is that these infantrymen will do what it takes to survive.

If the women that stay in these combat units can actually shoot well while under duress then they may earn some real respect. How well should they shoot? Designated marksman or scout sniper well. It will be one of the only combat related things she can do that will add real value to the unit as a whole. Otherwise their role will degenerate quickly to step and fetch it duty or prostitute. I really don’t think they will be doing much actual fighting and if they do it will scar them worse than it does the guys.

A woman that has killed men will lose some of her fear of men. If she is pushed hard enough from that point on she may just retaliate, while using a weapon, and it will likely be lethal. Remember, women, easier to provoke than men and much less regard for rules of fairness.

T says:…For example in your abortion example, men and women both have right to control their own bodies. Giving men the legal right to decide whether or not an abortion takes place would be giving men more than equal rights in addition to being impractical for a variety of reasons.

This doesn’t follow for one very simple reason. The decision to abort a child is not just a decision about one’s own body, it is a much bigger decision about future obligations. Hence, by giving the women the opportunity to “do over” and avoid future obligations that have serious repercussions on the rest of there lives while giving the males no such option we are practicing institutional bigotry. Society instead tells men they owe child support regardless of how ready they may or may not be for a child in their life, while giving women plenty of medical options to simply avoid responsibility. That is not equal rights, that is giving more rights to women than men have.

Athor Pel just pushed my thoughts a bit further down the track he set … how about women getting fragged in combat when they fold under the stress? Actually it doesn’t have to be combat, may not have to go as far as the buildup could be enough to have the same effect. That is, render the women absent from their assigned combat units. Yes infantrymen placed in dire situations will do a lot to survive, what happens when the women in their midst start dragging everyone down?

Thanks for posting the link with the testimony from the female Marine captain. I’d read that a while back at another (mil) blog I frequent and thought it so relevant to the current goings-on that it really needed to be brought to a broader audience and you made that possible. Rollo is right though; just like allowing women to serve on submarines this is really about being able to get the correct badge so you can move up the ranks to general or admiral.

Now, I can just pay for sex. Err, I mean, wait. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. Ummm, it’s only illegal if it’s only one time? What about if you’re a regular? If I get a camera and film it, is it legal then?

T says:
“…For example in your abortion example, men and women both have right to control their own bodies. Giving men the legal right to decide whether or not an abortion takes place would be giving men more than equal rights in addition to being impractical for a variety of reasons.”

There is a logistical problem with giving men the right to decide an abortion should take place, because there are biological inequalities that we can’t change at this time.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t be equal *in the eyes of the law*. These days, in most states, a woman has 3 months* from the time she is pregnant to decide she doesn’t want to have the child, abort it, and have no future obligations.
*the detail doesn’t matter.
We can equalize the law, if not the biology by giving men that same choice. Upon learning of their impending fatherhood (ie. when the man finds out, no matter if the woman is 2weeks pregnant at the time, or mother of a 2-year-old), a man gets the same 3 months to decide to either take on the role of father, or perform a ‘legal abortion’ in which he is legally stripped of all rights *and obligations* to that possible child in perpetuity. the child ceases to exist in legal relation to the man.
A woman who is in it for the money would be sensible to tell the father ASAP, and if he decides to legally abort, well, she knows her choices. She wants the baby, it’s all hers.

The only thing it won’t solve is the tragic case in which a man would be happy to raise a baby himself with no support or anything from the woman, but she doesn’t want to carry it for 9months to then turn it over, and plans to abort. that’s a real biological issue.

(Note that I am not advocating abortion. Actually, I’m very opposed. but as long as it’s going to be legal, it’s only decent to give men the same *legal* rights. I’m aware this would never actually happen. I’m just pointing out how it could.)

It seems that every few months we attract a feminist here who either wants to try to convince us or state “novel” points that have all been addressed previously, usually prior to the feminist’s arrival. I wonder how long this particular one will last.

T says:
“Women in combat seems like a stupid idea to me, but if there are women who can meet the standards then let them. I doubt tht there are man who can manage it. I’ve got no interest in being shot at personally.”

Normally, I would agree. I don’t believe men and women are completely different, in two separate spheres. I believe men and women can each be placed on a bell curve for any quality, and the curves will be separate but overlapping. I think most women want to bear and raise children – but I don’t believe in forcing it on those few women at the end of the curve who just weren’t born that way.
I think that if you can truly do the required standards (to a set standard, not a proportional one), then there’s no reason not to do it.
But combat is different. Men in combat have to rely on each other in a way other areas can’t approach. Injecting women into that changes everything, and to the detriment of men.
I’m in favour of letting women who have the abilities into most areas of life (with the note that it’s very few women who have the abilities to function in many traditionally male spheres), but combat is a whole different concept with important differences.There’s a reason some countries with experience have actually gone back and removed women from the front lines.

I don’t fully understand whats going on here. Are they talking about making women into infantry soldiers, or are they talking about female clerks/cooks/bottlewashers serve in Infantry battalions. I used to be an armoured platoon commander, (Canadian) There were no women as armoured troopers but we did have clerks and medics who were women. There weren’t very many and it wasn’t much of a problem. Later in my career I was a platoon commander in an ordnance battalion maintenance company (that’s not what we call them but I assume the vast majority of this audience are Americans so I use terms they should understand). We had lots of women in the battalion, maybe 15-20 percent. The ones in my platoon were for the most part competant technicians. They were however horrible soldiers. They didn’t even have the stamina to keep up on physical training – and this is a support unit, not a combat unit. Whenever we were to deploy on a battalion or brigade exercise half of them where lined up at the medics clinic to try and get a light duties chit. A subset of my unit deployed to gulf war one. The women were all bitching and moaning that they couldn’t deploy for whatever reason. For an army to be able to afford to employ more than a small number of women, it has to be either rich and non serious or matter on national survival.

I have a question – is the purpose of the military to defend the country and win wars or to be inclusive and not hurt women’s feelings? Assuming you try to embrace both and one has to give what is the most important and what is the acceptable cost in lives to accomplish the second? Is the death of 10 marines that would not have happened acceptable to achieve this? 30? 1000? There is a price for each and every action – why is the price for this never discussed but merely dismissed? If everyone agrees that there are some dangers but we can mitigate them what if any are the benefits of doing this other making angry feminists happy and how many lives lost is acceptable to achieve this?

Some years ago, I was in a bar on a warm summer might, talking to a guy I knew – ex-military – Lance Corporal – who was a bit at sixes-and-sevens, in his life, having left the military to please his wife, who of course promptly divorced him. Suddenly, a dog was going stir-crazy and about to attack the people in the bar. We all moved back but he without a seconds thought, moved in, grabbed the dogs tongue, and as he forced the dogs jaws together onto its tongue, snapped its neck. End of Problem: End of Dog. He was in the task force sent to the Falklands in April 1982 and he told me that the night he landed there, in the dark, and as he and his platoon proceeded inland – unsure of where the Argentinian soldiers might be firing on them from – was the most terrifying time in his entire life. No fake heroics.

He is easily the bravest person I ever met. I just cannot see a female coming close – at least I have never seen it.

For example in your abortion example, men and women both have right to control their own bodies. Giving men the legal right to decide whether or not an abortion takes place would be giving men more than equal rights in addition to being impractical for a variety of reasons.

“I think most women want to bear and raise children – but I don’t believe in forcing it on those few women at the end of the curve who just weren’t born that way.
I think that if you can truly do the required standards (to a set standard, not a proportional one), then there’s no reason not to do it.”

Women should do their own work, rather than displacing a man. ore likely than not, it’s a zero-sum situation.

pb says:
“Women should do their own work, rather than displacing a man. ore likely than not, it’s a zero-sum situation.”
As I stated, I don’t believe there is ‘women’s work’ and ‘men’s work’. I believe there is a broad chunk of different types of work, requiring different aptitudes. I believe that men and women as a whole have different aptitudes, but an individual man or woman does not necessarily have the exact same aptitudes as the category of men or women as a whole. I think very few women have the aptitude to be a good engineer, but I see no reason the few who do shouldn’t be engineers. I think very few men have the aptitudes to be a nurse, but I see no reason the few who do shouldn’t be nurses. I think the majority of women who want to stay home and raise their kids should be encouraged to, but if an individual man and woman are a different balance of interests and prefer to split their money-earning/child-raising duties in some different manner, that’s up to them.

But it’s not really the point at hand, so while I’m happy to discuss the comparative abilities and roles of men and women, I don’t want to derail anything.

If I were to put forth an argument, it would not be based on abilities, but on the concrete results of displacing American men from jobs – no individual is “entitled” to a form of work simply because they may have the ability to do it – work is for the benefit of the group and must be understood accordingly, and when women are allowed to compete directly with men, men lose out, as does society at large, because women generally do a worse job – they’re generally not as committed nor do they derive their identity from work as men do.

As for women not being interested in going to combat, it shouldn’t matter — if women are found able to do such roles like men, then they should be required to sign up for selective service. Women in general have been complicit in promoting feminism by repeating the benefits for themselves and failling to resist . Now they should take on some of that burden as well.

This is just for T. Women have a natural reproductive advantage over men and the laws have given women the right to use that against men. Which puts men at a major disadvantage.

Men have a natural physical advantage over women but the laws have restricted a man’s right to use them against women. Which puts men at a major disadvantage.

You see, the rationale behind restricting men’s physical advantage is because it would not be conducive to run a community with allowing men full reign of their physical capabilities. The exact same is true for a woman’s reproductive advantage and how they use it. Tradition wisely restricted their authority over its use as it was damaging to not only the woman but also her family, husband and community.

Anyway, who cares really, you will just disagree? Women have the right to their own bodies, even in marriage, and must by law, be able to use it against men, who get no such rights at all. The real funny bit is that if a woman has the right to control her own body, so does a man. So… if a woman decides to divorce her husband she should not be able to claim alimony because that is laying claim to the man’s labour and, as that money comes from the control of his body, he should be able to choose where the reward of his hard work goes.

pb says:
“If I were to put forth an argument, it would not be based on abilities, but on the concrete results of displacing American men from jobs – no individual is “entitled” to a form of work simply because they may have the ability to do it – ”
That’s a different angle of looking than I was, so I’ll move to it.
Is the assumption that men should have jobs, and women should not, unless they are an additional complement to men’s jobs? (ie. men are entitled to jobs, but women aren’t, because blahblah reasons exist but aren’t necessary to the point right now)
Or that men should have first crack at any jobs because men are better at jobs, since they are committed and derive identity from it?

If the former, that’s simply a worldview that’s internally consistent, and while I may not agree, I won’t argue.
If the latter, then I think we’re probably on the same page, just from different angles.
When I talk about aptitude and ability, those sorts of things would come into it. A woman may have the brains to be a doctor, but if she doesn’t also have the dedication to work the number of hours expected, the I wouldn’t say she has sufficient aptitude to be a doctor.
Also, as long as we’re talking how things ‘should’ be, a woman who doesn’t perform to the standards one would expect out of a man should simply be fired. No need to categorically exclude people when the working world already has provisions for underperformance – it just needs to be applied to women who want to work in the same way as it has always applied to men.

Fred: Irrelevant comparisions about how an average female soldier will kick the butt of an average male civilian

Maybe they mean the average SWPL man-civvy? (Other “lesser” men being notoriously invisble to the hypergamic retina).
Or could we arrange a series of cagefights between ladygrunts and, say, steel erectors, sheepfarmers, refuse collectors, coalmen (we still have them), fencing contractors and so on, to settle the matter?

There was once a time where the US Military was the foremost fighting force because of the aptitude and capability of our soldiers rather than our technology. We’re on the other end of that now with our technology barely saving us from the lack of qualifications due to systematically lowered standards.

Could our military, without their expensive toys, take down our opponents across the world? I don’t think so, at this point. We’re not a finely balanced and honed fighting machine. We’re a pack of kids with expensive equipment. I think basic physical standards are called for at this time to establish a fit, healthy, and athletic standard for soldiers.

12 chin-ups (Simple task. I do my sets in 20s and I’m hardly a body-builder)
60 push-ups (what happened to the days when 50 was standard punishment rather than 20?)
5k in under 25 mins in fatigues and combat boots (Easy as pie)
Bench-press their own weight (Again, easy for anybody in shape)

All of the above standards are easy for a man below the age of 28 who takes care of himself. They ensure he can haul his wounded brothers to cover, help lift debris off his teammates in an explosion, and fall back to a secured position in a hurry in case of complications. Our greatest days where when our soldiers were the supreme machines. With women and the low standards they brought (not even counting mental/stress/morale), we’re lucky we have unmanned drones to do our work for us.

pb says:
“As for women not being interested in going to combat, it shouldn’t matter — if women are found able to do such roles like men, then they should be required to sign up for selective service.”
I think everyone with a shred of logic around these parts agrees that if women want ‘equality’, they have to take the unpleasant parts with the nice ones. But logic and ration won’t be applied to a question like drafting women.
Given the already tenuous position of the draft these days, I would see this as more likely to end with drafts abolished than women drafted.

Everyone of my male friends says they think that imagery of an ass-kicking, automatic weapon holding hot chick (Think Trinity/the black girl form serenity) is a turn on. I always call BS by saying something like “no you don’t. You say that because you are so conditioned to believe that what is what you are supposed to say.” This usually dovetails into a painful discussion about true feminity and what is really a “turn on.” I think it is working, at least on my circle of friends. It is hard though.

They may simply lower standards in the same way that OSHA has lowered the standards in the private sector.

I remember working in a shop (male dominated field/skilled trade) that had this lesbian working there. A truck came in with a 50lb crate. Me and this other guy slid it to the tailgate and picked it up a man on each side, and started carrying it to the shop. (realistically i could have carried it myself, but it was fragile and didn’t want it to get unbalanced and fall).

The lesbian supervisor (she was related to the owner) started pitching a fit telling us we had to use the hi lo for everything. We stood there for about a minute with this crate in our hands, while she freaked out and forced us to walk back and put it back on the tailgate. Then she got the hi-lo and picked it up while us two men balanced it on the forks.

Its obvious to me that all these regulations from OSHA are to ensure that men are NOT more special than women at certain tasks.

When they lower the standards in the military, they will claim it is for the “safety” of the troops. Of course men won’t complain about the danger. But women will have no problem complaining.

I think this is great. Women are now Legal equals now. Sense women have agency to defend the nation there is no longer a need for double standards. Title IX,VAWA, Selective service , pussy pass, etc. etc. should be legally challenged based on the fact there is no where women are barred for gender reasons so there is nothing to justify female priviledge.
You guys are sounding like a bunch of so-con churchians talking all of that reality stuff. I’m all for the fantasy bitches, eat pray love legionnaire style. Divorce boring loyal dude, get the kids, leave em at mom’s and join the french foreign legion just in time to get in on the action in Mali.
Next thing you know a non hormonal male pill will be on the market.

As an Infantryman I find it interesting the Pentagon and media is totally ignoring the massive, catastrophic plummet in morale since Panetta’s announcement. We had guys crying out of anger, guys breaking stuff, and it’s just been pure depression from private to smaj. No one plans on reenlisting, I even threw away an officer packet. The Infantry community has been in a serious uproar – just like any U.S. Army or Marine Corps Infantry FB page to see what’s going on. But the government doesn’t care and the media doesn’t want to report it.

I’m a street cop; women in American policing, were hired in mass, by court order, starting about 1976, I started in 1980 and it wasn’t until about 1985 that women started integrating the patrol ranks.
I know policing is not the military, but there are some similarities.

There are some very competent, capable women police officers, perhaps 20% of female hires., that said, a few observations
Women have destroyed esprit-d-corps, most guys are no longer proud of their profession.
Women are unbelievably chickenshit petty violation enforcers, further damaging the public’s perception of cops.
Women are chronic medical roll abusers.
Women are “20 and out” hires, destroying the pension systems.
Women are given wildly preferential treatment for all special assignments, promotions, cushy details, and “a girls has to do what a girl has to do” to be popular with the boss…wink wink, most of the police women are shameless whores.
Training standards have been decimated to accommodate females, weakening the entire force.
I’ve never seen a female cop hold her own in a fist fight, most just watch or worse, run.
The male cops around attractive female cops are so busy flexing they forget to do their job.
I’ve seen promiscuous female cops destroy marriages, units, careers.
I blame men for this, they should be thinking with the other head, but that tang is too intoxicating for these old drooling management types, who suddenly have “Bambi” winking at them, giving them “Monica’s”
If the military is anything like the police force, this plan is simply treason, designed to destroy the US military’s ability to do its job.
Watch for a mass exodus of female soldiers quitting the service, getting pregnant, hitting the sick call, getting “injured” etc.
Goodby America, it was nice to know you!

Anon says:Everyone of my male friends says they think that imagery of an ass-kicking, automatic weapon holding hot chick (Think Trinity/the black girl form serenity) is a turn on. I always call BS by saying something like “no you don’t. You say that because you are so conditioned to believe that what is what you are supposed to say.”

Well there is also the perception that they will be ‘sexually easy’ and won’t play silly games like many women do, which might also factor into it.

Banky–“Good. Over here, we have a male-affectionate, easy to get along with, non-political agenda lesbian. Down here, we have a man-hating, angry as f**k, agenda of rage, bitter dyke. Over here, we got Santa Claus, and up here the Easter Bunny. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first?”

Remember the answer. The hot, easy, uncomplicated, thinks like a man but looks like a supermodel with a gun who will toally be your f**ck buddy is also a figment of the imagination.

Women in combat is patently absurd. Per the CDChttp://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_11/sr11_252.pdf) the avg. 19 year old male in the US is 5’10”, 175 ibs. whereas the avg. 19 year old woman is 5’4″ and 150 (had to read that last one several times as the weight seemed high). Anyway, the average guy inclined to enlist is going to probably be about the avg. height but likely a bit lighter whereas the avg. female is going to be in far better shape than the average seems to imply, but again likely to about the same height (let’s say 5’4″ and 130.

Imagine that both make it through basic and can meet the current male fitness standards (admittedly unlikely for the female regardless). The male will still have an overwhelming absolute advantage such that if you squared off 100 of each in opposite sex pairings, 98 times the men would win in an MMA-style bout and 97 would be an absolute bloodbath with the women unconcious or dead inside of 2 minutes. Substitute 100 female triathletes (or body builders, fitness trainers, whatever) and keep the average group of men and the numbers don’t drop very much (90 male wins and 85 bloodbaths). The only reason either scenario wouldn’t be worse is that the men would have to fight so hard to overcome the instinct not to hurt the women.

You forgot to factor in the hormonal fluctuations a woman goes through which culminates in ovulation and menstruation. Such fluctuations may lead to rash decisions and endanger the whole group thus making women a liability in combat.

From the third link in the post, discussing woman-specific problems that arise in the long term:

At the end of the 7-month deployment, … [I] was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (which personally resulted in infertility, but is not a genetic trend in my family), which was brought on by the chemical and physical changes endured during deployment.

infowarrior1 says:
“@Kai
You forgot to factor in the hormonal fluctuations a woman goes through which culminates in ovulation and menstruation. Such fluctuations may lead to rash decisions and endanger the whole group thus making women a liability in combat.”
I was stating reasons to oppose women in combat *even if* we took for granted that there were a few women who were completely suited for it, and thus didn’t go into any specific reasons women would be unfit for combat.
I don’t agree with your reason though. The amount of hormonal fluctuation and the effect it has on reasoning varies quite a bit in different women. It’s worthy of considering, but I strongly suspect that any woman who has the necessary amount of testosterone to build the body and temperament to be a genuinely comparable recruit with men (which would be a very very tiny percentage) are probably not women who have a lot of wild estrogen swings. Given that a woman has to be fairly big in build and in exceedingly good shape to compete with an average man, any woman who could pass the physical tests to a male standard is probably amenorrhoeaic on top of her baseline atypical-for-a-woman hormone balance, and isn’t likely to be seeing much monthly change.
The average woman, I would agree is more susceptible to poor decision-making (well, at any time of the month – I can’t say as I really see a rational time of the month in normal women..), but I think if we were holding women to the same other standards of competence, it would weed out this problem already.

“These women will be hazed mercilessly by their fellow soldiers in order to find their breaking point.”

umm no

“On the one hand, plebe year has been eviscerated. As an example of how far stress indoctrination has deteriorated, one first-classman I spoke to was reprimanded by his company commander during the first week of academic year, traditionally the most rigorous week of the entire year for plebes, because he had “upset” a female plebe. After having corrected her table manners numerous times with no success, the upperclassman ordered her to eat with oversize utensils at the next meal, a ridiculously mild sanction. The woman returned to her room and wept in anticipation of her embarrassment at the coming meal, and her roommate then went to the company commander and protested such maltreatment. The upperclassman was told to stop harassing her. If this series of events had occurred in an all-male Academy, both plebes would have been disciplined rather than the upperclassman.”

“any woman who has the necessary amount of testosterone to build the body and temperament to be a genuinely comparable recruit with men (which would be a very very tiny percentage) ”

caster semenya who had some man parts had testosterone levels so high for a woman that she was disqualified. Her T levels still didn’t reach anywhere near an average man’s.
The elite female athletes(the v.v. tiny percentage) that you see are pumped up on PEDs, it’s become so ubiquitous that it’s hard to believe that women can’t get an average man’s build no matter how hard they try at the gym. Unless of course the average man has grown up jerking off to title ix superheroines as his only exercise instead of playing sports.
It’s not hard to believe that women in military use it when you have cheerleaders trying it out for six-pack abs.

i deal with this shit on a daily basis. my last deployment made me sick when i saw all the hapless beta guys RUNNING to help women carry the 3-4 bags of civilian attire to go to kuwait for 9 months.

HM2, can you help me carry these? me- NO. hump your own gear princess. and they ALWAYS found some other schlub to carry thier stuff. when the Marines offered infantry training to female officers only TWO volunteered. one washed out after day one. the other one quit 2 weeks later (could be after one week though).

It will be interesting (over time) to see how this latest example of Enlightenment/Marxist fantasy plays out. If other occupations are anything to go by, it will lead to a continual male withdrawal from the military, with ever lowering standards therein: that is certainly my observation of what is and has happened in The Law – one overcomes ones natural reluctance to go easy on women; their behaviour makes one go for the metaphorical jugular – in the legal game of prisoner’s dilemma one can never trust ones opponent when dealing with a female as one usually can when dealing with a male: Legal trust breaks down. Heaven knows what will happen to a platoon of girlies captured by a tribe of male soldiers who hate America, and who do not (in any event) approve of its women and as they see it their immoral ways. I’d guess they’ll kill the ugly ones and use the hotter ones for sexual practice: the word Rape is surely inappropriately applied when a woman signals so clearly that her femaleness and thus by default her chastity has been abandoned.

If, as is ultimately the case, the military are fighting for their own women, then what is America fighting for if they use front-line female soldiers? Certainly not for the men. The first thing the Greeks did was deal with the Amazons (as Herodotus tells us): after that civilisation was a possibility. If on 1st June 2016 there is a new Battle of The Somme, how will you feel to learn that on that day 50,000 female (American) soldiers have been killed in an unsuccessful offensive. Funny how even the Suffragettes did not seem to think that was part of the equality they were allegedly seeking, but instead were handing out white-feathers: the hypocrits!

infowarrior1
there’s not going to be that many but there will be enough to disrupt the males that are there. Think of the men being sent to kill patriot rebels. talk about a lost soul, homosexuality, femiinism, diversity and inclusiveness (except for him). Know or unknowing he his fighting the very men that are keeping him free.
Now this drone thing is not as scary as you think. A patriot rebel has something no other rebel has patriot rebels live where they fly the drones. No body here can shoot down a drone but any body can shoot a drone crewman standing in line with his kids at a jack in the box.

I see that I’m a bit late to the party and all the good stuff about physical differentials and Katie Petronio etc has been covered, but a few points:
1) Pregnancy and effects on staffing.
2) Some folks have mentioned Selective Service as a rhetorical coup-de-grace for this, but there’s another, immediate example: What happens when officers put in branch preferences and don’t get what they want? For instance, at the US Military Academy, seniors all choose their branches based on the overall class order-of-merit list. There are a limited number of lieutenant slots per branch. If you are not high enough in your class to get your branch, guess what? The selection algorithm bumps you to the next one on your list. To the extent that you are high in your class, you control your fate; otherwise, you get the leavin’s. So what happens when a woman picks Logistics, but she’s not high enough to get it? Does she now get force-branched to Armor, or Infantry, which will now be in her branching slotting preferences? What is the officer corps going to do with a system that treats all women as fungible in combat arms, when it’s painfully obvious that they are all not (the occasional super-athlete notwithstanding–I only saw 2)? We don’t have to wait for selective service to see women involuntarily put in combat positions. Just give it a year.
3) There’s a clause in the policy change (I think, read about it somewhere but haven’t seen the actual text) that allows services to submit requests for exemptions from the policy for particular jobs. If they’re smart, they’ll request exemptions for infantry, etc. I wouldn’t be surprised to see
4) Someone brought up a very good point on another site that this will further damage male-female relations on a social level. What kind of society sends women to fight? Are there any? This is Chesterton’s Fence writ large.
5) I have seen no arguments for this policy change based on military effectiveness data. The 1992-1993 report on this covered most of the efficacy measurements quite nicely. All the military women I’ve run into are squee-ing about the glass ceiling being broken, not about how it’ll help win wars.
6) Dannyfrom504 is a squid, so I’m glad to see that even he’s on the right side of this : ).

I know two women who spent several years in the military, and they’re probably the two most sexually dysfunctional women I’ve met. Oddly, in opposite ways: one turned into the base’s town bike, while the other went frigid and asexual. They both appear headed toward spinsterdom, despite craving a family (without realizing it) and really having a lot of potential for that.

Women shouldn’t be anywhere near the military. It was more honest when they were called camp followers.

But now that women are allowed in combat, the entire rationale of the Supreme Court’s argument is gone. They will have to include women in SS. I can’t imagine how they would justify not doing so.

This whole thing is an absurdity.

You underestimate their creativity. How do they justify giving affirmative action — supposedly designed to make up for the effects of slavery — to people not descended from slaves and actually from relatively affluent backgrounds, like Barack Obama? How do they justify increased “guest worker” programs when unemployment is in the double digits? How do they justify making a father pay child support, when only the mother has control over whether the baby is born?

They don’t justify those things, and they don’t have to. They just do them, and no one except a few radicals calls them on it, because all right-thinking people are in agreement with them. Likewise, they won’t try to justify special treatment for women in the military and making them generals while keeping them out of the draft. They’ll just do it.

Every innovation of modernism would have been considered an absurdity by the people who preceded it. “Gay marriage” was a joke twenty years ago; now it’s supposedly a civil rights issue and half the population supports it because they don’t want Hollywood actors or Oprah to call them mean. This absurdity will be portrayed as normal too.

For example in your abortion example, men and women both have right to control their own bodies.

Come on, T, you’re not this stupid. Abortion isn’t about the bodies of the parents; it’s about whether a child is born. Even Obama admitted that when he said he wouldn’t want one of his teenage daughters “punished with a baby.” Not by pregnancy, but by being burdened with a child.

A woman has the legal right to decline that burden right up to the moment of birth.
The father’s equal right ends at the moment of conception. In fact, if he tries to avail himself of the mother’s right to end the burden later, he will be charged with murder.

Explain how that’s equal rights, without resorting to nonsense about “own bodies,” please.

Every innovation of modernism would have been considered an absurdity by the people who preceded it. “Gay marriage” was a joke twenty years ago; now it’s supposedly a civil rights issue and half the population supports it because they don’t want Hollywood actors or Oprah to call them mean.

Of course, And the other “tail” is that conservatives will generally embrace each and every one of these 10-20 years later as being the new status quo. The only exception to this is abortion, and even that is now wavering a bit. Of course, by then we’ll be arguing about legalization of polyamorous marriages (that’s what they’ll be called, rather than “polygamy” — wording is everything, as we see with “undocumented workers” and the like).

I like the way you think greyghost. As a life long infantryman, the decision makes me angry and sad for the young men who will never experience what I enjoyed. As a Southern nationalist, the decision makes me happy. We take what the Lord gives us.

@ Cail Corishev – “Come on, T, you’re not this stupid. Abortion isn’t about the bodies of the parents; it’s about whether a child is born. Even Obama admitted that when he said he wouldn’t want one of his teenage daughters “punished with a baby.” Not by pregnancy, but by being burdened with a child.

A woman has the legal right to decline that burden right up to the moment of birth.
The father’s equal right ends at the moment of conception. In fact, if he tries to avail himself of the mother’s right to end the burden later, he will be charged with murder.

Explain how that’s equal rights, without resorting to nonsense about “own bodies,” please.”

This is a situation that nature made unequal. The law makes it as equal as practical without infringing on the right of men or women to control their own bodies. Actually, I think that use medical privacy or something to explain their reasoning, but the point is that men and women both have it. Of course the results are different because men and women’s bodies are different. However as it stands now, men and women both have a legal right to control their bodies. This means that women can have abortions, and if men got pregnant they could have one to. (I suspect that if men got pregnant abortion clinics would be as common and convenient as starbucks but let me not get too far OT. ) Men and women both have a legal obligation to care for any of their children that are born unless they both decide to place the child for adoption.

Obviously in practice men and women having different bodies will lead to their equal rights having different effects. There’s nothing sensible to be done about it. Men and women are both aware of basic biology going in. I have about as much sympathy for men faced with unwanted pregnancy as I do for women who go into combat to their detriment. You knew, or should have known the deal going in. Why are you whining after the fact?

@Cane Caldo on January 25, 2013 at 12:51 PM —I’m sure some hate to hear one more time about The Abolition of Man, but within that short tome CSL writes about the problem that (since the horrors and fallout of WWI) British soldiers are not allowed to be proud of doing a good job killing the enemy into surrender; how modernity carves the heart out of men.

Challenge accepted.
I think more relevant is the passage at the beginning:1 The real (perhaps unconscious) philosophy of Gaius and Titius becomes clear if we contrast the two following lists of disapprovals and approvals.

A. Disapprovals: A mother’s appeal to a child to be ‘brave’ is ‘nonsense’ (Green Book, p. 62). The reference of the word ‘gentleman’ is ‘extremely vague’ (ibid.) ‘To call a man a coward tells us really nothing about what he does’ (p. 64). Feelings about a country or empire are feelings ‘about nothing in particular’ (p. 77).

B. Approvals: Those who prefer the arts of peace to the arts of war (it is not said in what circumstances) are such that ‘we may want to call them wise men’ (p. 65). The pupil is expected ‘to believe in a democratic community life’ (p. 67). ‘Contact with the ideas of other people is, as we know, healthy’ (p. 86). The reason for bathrooms (‘that people are healthier and pleasanter to meet when they are clean’) is ‘too obvious to need mentioning’ (p. 142). It will be seen that comfort and security, as known to a suburban street in peace-time, are the ultimate values: those things which can alone produce or spiritualize comfort and security are mocked. Man lives by bread alone, and the ultimate source of bread is the baker’s van: peace matters more than honour and can be preserved by jeering at colonels and reading newspapers.

@Athor Pel on January 25, 2013 at 2:23 PM —
Excellent synopsis of the likely shaking out of events.

A few caveats and further observations:

1) You differentiated between curvy and androgynous women. I think there will be a couple more fracture points, and they would involve the means of coping: I haven’t yet assigned them to anything such as “high-T” or “high-estrogen”.

a) Women who become the squad slut, trading sexual favors for easier assignments; or who play “let’s you and him fight” among their own unit.

b) Feminist harpie screechers who end up accusing virtually their whole unit of harassment (some going so far, perhaps with the help of a Gloria Allred type lawyer) to try to get the military disbanded because of “hostile work conditions” ; it’ll be interesting to see how military discipline, courts martial, and the like, survive that! (Will we echo the Soviet Union with political commissars of rank in each unit, whereby women are given the choice of a court martial or a civilian court?)

c) *If* we see women in real combat (which God forbid), what will be the rate of PTSD and mass killings by women driven insane by combat? Are the gun grabbers *counting* on that to seize guns from all veterans, to register *all* guns? Or will there again be special “women’s support networks” denied to the men?

d) Of the women who remain sane, will they then be able to go back to civilian women and tell them just how damn *good* civilian woman have it, and to stop complaining? Will the civilian women listen, or use their rationalization hamsters against “team woman” ?

e) How will the Michael Moore types (“we’re just *supporting* the troops”) act when women are in combat? Will returning women veterans be mocked as “baby-killers” by women protesters who have had abortions? How many will snap and violently attack those same protestors? Will the male veterans who have stood with them, maintain their composure or defend the women they’ve served alongside of (or on top of, or underneath, or K-9)?

@Hurting on January 25, 2013 at 10:37 pm:Imagine that both make it through basic and can meet the current male fitness standards (admittedly unlikely for the female regardless). The male will still have an overwhelming absolute advantage such that if you squared off 100 of each in opposite sex pairings, 98 times the men would win in an MMA-style bout and 97 would be an absolute bloodbath with the women unconcious or dead inside of 2 minutes. Substitute 100 female triathletes (or body builders, fitness trainers, whatever) and keep the average group of men and the numbers don’t drop very much (90 male wins and 85 bloodbaths). The only reason either scenario wouldn’t be worse is that the men would have to fight so hard to overcome the instinct not to hurt the women.

Don’t be misled by the title: it refers to a martial arts dojo, and a woman seeking to learn how to fight effectively, and how she learns the differences in physical fighting skills between men and women, firsthand as it were.

“This is a situation that nature made unequal. The law makes it as equal as practical ”

how? by denying men the right to a child?
even feminists like shulamith firestone accepted that it was reproductive tyranny by women. And I replied to ‘equal rights’ thing above:

“For example in your abortion example, men and women both have right to control their own bodies.”

which a child, who understands human reproduction, would realize means an inequality of kind, not just of degree, like tennis grand slams handing out equal prize money to inferior athletes.
And that men and women have both the right to control their businesses, if men don’t want women in their workplaces, then women should go start their own, and so on.

“I suspect that if men got pregnant abortion clinics would be as common and convenient as starbucks but let me not get too far OT. ”

what kind of stupid response is that? are you just another reappearnace of the feminist/whatever that keeps lurking around these parts of the net?

This is a situation that nature made unequal. The law makes it as equal as practical

Nonsense. If the law were trying to make it equal, it would say, “Ok, men can’t stop a pregnancy after conception (without drastically violating the mother), therefore equality demands that women not be allowed to either. No abortion under any circumstance.” The father could be required to pay the mother’s medical costs, and perhaps compensate her if the pregnancy caused her to lose time at work or school. That would be the closest it could come to causing equality. Abortion is the opposite.

“I suspect that if men got pregnant abortion clinics would be as common and convenient as starbucks but let me not get too far OT.”

This makes no sense in light of the fact that one of the biggest complaints from the organized “womens reproductive rights” crowd is that for centuries men made all the laws controlling womens bodies.

That’s right, they did. And the reason they did is because of men’s inate sense of holding individuals accountable for their behavior. Men are actually MORE compassionate than women, because they believe in justice. They have known for centuries that women can’t be trusted to weigh these things objectively.

And the “their body” argument has always struck me as rediculous. It’s not your body. It is INSIDE your body. The absolute fereocity with which this “right” to destroy it RIGHT UP UNTIL BIRTH is the giveaway that it is about convenience. That is a baby that can live outside of you.

And of course this point is already being driven home by a few more articulate posters than me, but heres my shot at it:

The reason so many women love abortion is because they feel it makes fair what nature has made unfair, to paraphrase you, T.

In other words, “it’s not fair that I have to carry the baby if I get pregnant.”

The man says “so what? The solution to something that is by nature unfair is not to make it even worse by punishing the innocent. It is to hold accountable the people who knew about the inate unfairness before they engaged in the act that created the unfair situation.”

T–Are you really unable to see that there is a moral difference between “your body” and the nacent human life growing inside of “you body?” Even if the abortion crowd argued that a 1 day old zygote is qualitatively different from a 39 week unborn infant I would have respect for that, while still disagreeing. But you yourself argued upthread that it is just to able to abort that baby.

Oh for f’s sake. You are all trying to reason with Princess Rose Petal.

If women can fight, then they should have to register for INVOLUNTARY Selective Service!

What, you aren’t equal? OF COURSE YOU ARE EQUAL CUP-CAKE. Now run along and register with the men! Why are you complaining? I clearly admit you are equal in every possible way! Now REGISTER!

The problem with this, is it doesn’t grant the woman the choice to be on the front-lines if she feels like it, with an instant check-out card if she doesn’t. Instead if feels more like something cupcake is required to do. This lowers cup-cakes choices. Cupcake doesn’t like that.

@ Anon – we were discussing male and female equality under the law. Whether abortion is moral or not and when life begins is a different subject and one that I’m not going to debate with you. Right now abortion is legal and men and women have equal rights.

I suspect that T says these things just to get a rise out of you guys, but I feel compelled to point out, that whatever the accuracy of her views in whichever American state she lives in, they bear no resemblance to the law where I am, where, prima facie, Abortion is and always has been a crime, though, no longer with a mandatory sentence of capital punishment attached thereto. There are a few exceptions thereto, which I won’t go into, which on the face of the law make perfect sense – even if they are implemented in a way never intended by the proponents in 1967 of those ammendments to the law (as usually happens with most changes in the law on social matters). As such, this question of rights for a woman and none for a man are immaterial, and even if that were not the case such rights are in reality permissions (granted by men).

Rights based law seems to be both a never-ending growth industry (where only certain pre-designated victims have rights – such as that bitch ticket-seller I encountered the other week at the South Bank Centre, London asserting her right to an invisible personal space – such imaginary space trumping my desire to be a patron of the centre. You Americans are right about one thing: The customer is always right) and antithetical to English Common Law (a much better system) which works on a basis of freedom (now there is a radical concept) unless restricted in some way: Freedom and Democracy are twins never joined at birth and in fact seem to have different parents. Every right implies a correspondent duty: I would prefer people to advocate for their duties, such as a responsibity for the foetus in their womb (I was one once myself you know and therefore rather like foetuses: I was lucky; my mother’s next child miscarried and that always caused her great sorrow): I am amazed they are not advocating for post-birth abortion – that surely cannot be long delayed.

Well now, according to Christianity Today, women have been the true war heroes for awhile now.

…consider the killing of Osama Bin […]The Navy SEALs may have been the guys to get the job done, but the real story is about the female CIA agent who gathered the intelligence to find and kill bin Laden. In today’s war environment,this is the new, symbolic “front line,” and she’s the hero.

@ T- The appropriate response was already suggested earlier in the thread. If the man does not want to have the child and the woman does, he should be able to renounce all rights to the child. It is only fair, since if the man wants the child and the woman doesn’t, he has absolutely no say.

Talk about “fantasy vs. reality.” The commentary response seems to be a general acceptance of a fiat, exemplified in sunshinemary’s remark, “Now that women are allowed in combat…”

Is that all it takes? For some departing high-level bureaucrat to sign an order as he’s packing up his office, and now the republic is “allowing” women in combat?

No, the republic has not permitted women to serve as men, Leon Panetta and Barack Obama have merely signed an edict to perpetuate a fantasy, which happens to be a surreal and unsustainable opinion about reality.

The modern precedent here is Roe. Did the declaration of seven robed masters make abortion acceptable in the United States, or did it just fashion a dream into a legalized fiction? Yes, it opened official access, made dissent dangerous, and allowed the perpetration of infanticide to be accomplished more easily, no one is denying edicts have power and influence to shape reality on the high-profile margins. But it also sparked an abolitionist movement for 40 years, which turned the culture against infanticide. That was only possible because independent men do not confuse legislation (much less juridical legislation) as the final word on justice or liberty.

For all Power given [to the government] with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the Power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security.

… [Y]et the Right of resisting, even in such manifest Acts of Tyranny, will not suddenly, or on slight occasions, disturb the Government. For if it reach no farther than some private Mens [sic] Cases, though they have a right to defend themselves, and to recover by force, what by unlawful force is taken from them; yet the Right to do so, will not easily ingage [sic] them in a Contest, wherein they are sure to perish; it being as impossible for one or a few oppressed Men to disturb the Government, where the Body of the People do not think themselves concerned in it, as for a raving mad Man, or heady Male-content [sic] to overturn a well-settled State; the People being as little apt to follow the one, as the other.

… By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty, and, by the Establishment of a new Legislative (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own Safety and Security, which is the end for which they are in Society.

This latest act of aggression does not form a casus belli in itself, but it contributes to a pattern of governance that arguably does. The question isn’t whether we should take our pitchforks and march with a mob on D.C. The question is whether we are still able to recognize the point at which violent resistance will become necessary. In past generations it was easier to discern. In this generation of sissified men and intimidating feminists (Violence Is Never The Answer), it is an open question. And that question must be addressed, if only to resist in a more orderly fashion in the name of preventing violence. Where are the bright red lines? At what point do we declare, with God, “Thus far you may come and no farther”? What do we do when the enemy carefully avoids crossing the line, preferring the less provocative action of moving the line?

Our representatives have quietly ceased representing and started ruling. We fought and won a revolutionary war over lesser grievances. Panetta’s fiat — like “Obamacare” passed extra-constitutionally and in the dead of night, like the proposed violations of the Second Amendment, etc. — is a cultural action in a pitched fight in which only one side is engaged. It cannot transform material reality, like the Logos of God does. Human fiat, or “let it be done,” is hot breath dissipating in air; it is ink marked on parchment, fated to fade. It changes nothing and should be regarded as nothing. To even unconsciously treat their opinion as a fait accompli is to empower those who would tyrannize, given the opportunity, an opportunity we are now accidentally providing them.

Free men do not give an inch in this regard, and our forefathers would be preparing for war. We shameful progeny merely complain with weak sarcasm, irony, and mockery as they continue to roll over us. In a forum for men, we should speak plainly and make true preparations to act.

Talk about “fantasy vs. reality.” The commentary response seems to be a general acceptance of a fiat, exemplified in sunshinemary’s remark, “Now that women are allowed in combat…”

Is that all it takes? For some departing high-level bureaucrat to sign an order as he’s packing up his office, and now the republic is “allowing” women in combat?

No, the republic has not permitted women to serve as men, Leon Panetta and Barack Obama have merely signed an edict to perpetuate a fantasy, which happens to be a surreal and unsustainable opinion about reality.

The modern precedent here is Roe. Did the declaration of seven robed masters make abortion acceptable in the United States, or did it just fashion a dream into a legalized fiction? Yes, it opened official access, made dissent dangerous, and allowed the perpetration of infanticide to be accomplished more easily, no one is denying edicts have power and influence to shape reality on the high-profile margins. But it also sparked an abolitionist movement for 40 years, which turned the culture against infanticide. That was only possible because independent men do not confuse legislation (much less juridical legislation) as the final word on justice or liberty.

For all Power given [to the government] with trust for the attaining an end, being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected, or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the Power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security.

… [Y]et the Right of resisting, even in such manifest Acts of Tyranny, will not suddenly, or on slight occasions, disturb the Government. For if it reach no farther than some private Mens [sic] Cases, though they have a right to defend themselves, and to recover by force, what by unlawful force is taken from them; yet the Right to do so, will not easily ingage [sic] them in a Contest, wherein they are sure to perish; it being as impossible for one or a few oppressed Men to disturb the Government, where the Body of the People do not think themselves concerned in it, as for a raving mad Man, or heady Male-content [sic] to overturn a well-settled State; the People being as little apt to follow the one, as the other.

… By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty, and, by the Establishment of a new Legislative (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own Safety and Security, which is the end for which they are in Society.

This latest act of aggression does not form a casus belli in itself, but it contributes to a pattern of governance that arguably does. The question isn’t whether we should take our pitchforks and march with a mob on D.C. The question is whether we are still able to recognize the point at which violent resistance will become necessary. In past generations it was easier to discern. In this generation of sissified men and intimidating feminists (Violence Is Never The Answer), it is an open question. And that question must be addressed, if only to resist in a more orderly fashion in the name of preventing violence. Where are the bright red lines? At what point do we declare, with God, “Thus far you may come and no farther”? What do we do when the enemy carefully avoids crossing the line, preferring the less provocative action of moving the line?

Our representatives have quietly ceased representing and started ruling. We fought and won a revolutionary war over lesser grievances. Panetta’s fiat — like “Obamacare” passed extra-constitutionally and in the dead of night, like the proposed violations of the Second Amendment, etc. — is a cultural action in a pitched fight in which only one side is engaged. It cannot transform material reality, like the Logos of God does. Human fiat, or “let it be done,” is hot breath dissipating in air; it is ink marked on parchment, fated to fade. It changes nothing and should be regarded as nothing. To even unconsciously treat their opinion as a fait accompli is to empower those who would tyrannize, given the opportunity, an opportunity we are now accidentally providing them.

Free men do not give an inch in this regard, and our forefathers would be preparing for war. We shameful progeny merely complain with weak sarcasm, irony, and mockery as they continue to roll over us. In a forum for men, we should speak plainly and make true preparations to act.

Buck: “If the military is anything like the police force, this plan is simply treason, designed to destroy the US military’s ability to do its job.
Watch for a mass exodus of female soldiers quitting the service, getting pregnant, hitting the sick call, getting “injured” etc.”

So think of the next logical step. The military knowing that women will chicken out at the last second will A) put rules in place that force men not trained for combat to “fill in” positions vacated by the XX cowards and B) the military will massively increase personnel levels assuming that some percentage will be unreliable. Either way as is usually the case with anything involving women and their blind pursuit of privilege without responsilbility, males and taxpayers will be the ones to pay the price.

@ good foot – “@ T- The appropriate response was already suggested earlier in the thread. If the man does not want to have the child and the woman does, he should be able to renounce all rights to the child. It is only fair, since if the man wants the child and the woman doesn’t, he has absolutely no say.”

One can not assume that because a woman is pregnant and does not have an abortion that she in fact “wants a child”. She maybe deciding to go through with the pregnancy for other reasons. Even if one could make that assumption, Abortion being legal has nothing to do with the obligation of parents to care for any children that they have unless those parents both agree to give the child up for adoption.

“One can not assume that because a woman is pregnant and does not have an abortion that she in fact “wants a child”. She maybe deciding to go through with the pregnancy for other reasons. Even if one could make that assumption, Abortion being legal has nothing to do with the obligation of parents to care for any children that they have unless those parents both agree to give the child up for adoption.”

OK, last time. then I am done. This is not what goodfoot is talking about. “Wanting the child” is his way of describing “not getting an abortion, for whatever reason.” He rightly suggests that if the man does not want to [not have the baby aborted] he should be able to walk away from all responsibility–like being come after later for child support. That is fair, according to your logic–but it is not the law. Therefore everyone reading is forced to conclude that your support of abortion rights (again, all the way up to birthday) is about relieving women of responsibility (something women excel at) and not allowing men the same right–at any point along the same timeline (any time during the pregnancy–just like a woman can).

@ anon – and I will say one more time that abortion being legal has nothing to do with the obligation of parents to care for their children. Both men and women can control their own bodies, both men and women are obligated to support any children that they have. That’s the law and it is equal.

Matt, excellent post! As Homer Simpson would say: “Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.”

Personally, I think what keeps this country from descending into war is basically that our comfort has not been sufficiently degraded. As you said, the government can pass all sorts of non-sense like this but it has little impact to most men who (having jettisoned female companionship/partnership as the first phase of comfort degradation) are still largely satisfied to have a job, a simple place to live and sufficient food and entertainments. The government , though, will keep playing its cynical game of divide and conquer. By categorizing and compartmentalizing the citizenry they are easily able to play one against the other. Just look at illegal immigration. Is it really so hard to solve this problem? No, but it continuing the “problem” is a really handy way to keep people pre-occupied and to hold a carrot over the heads of the legally emigrated family members of many illegals. Solidarity through giveaways. And how does it play?
Like this: “Hey Latinos, white men don’t want your poor loved ones sneaking across the borders. Hey white men, the black men are destroying your neighborhoods with drugs. Hey wimmins, the mens are oppressing you with their penises. Hey everybody, the only ones that can solve all this are us holier-than-thous, your government dearest.”

The line is this: in this societal atmosphere of suspicion and animosity, the increasingly paralyzed and stratified government will start failing more and more frequently. Look no further than all these “automated” rules with deadlines that are coming more and more regularly and that the government comes closer to missing every time. They seem to have little time to do anything else but kick the can down the road for a few more months and then resume being bogged down in gridlock. The consequence will be a country that goes broke and starts radically failing. When the moment comes that men start being impacted in their ability to work, buy food, housing and entertain themselves, the S will seriously HTF. Bide your time. It is coming.

True preparation to act may or may not look like it once did. The wisest thing may be not to take up our pitchforks, but passports, and prosper in another land while nature corrects this one in its unnatural absurdities and injustices.

To remain, to function as the patriots of 1776, may be a wasted effort and a wasted life, as only the brutal realities of nature can war against the unnatural constructs.

Plain talk and strong action are good, but our enemy no longer camps on the other side of the meadow, where we may confront him. Neither are we outfitted for any such confrontation.

In the tides of humanity and history, huge swaths of people were often caught up in the sweeping movements of war, upheaval, exploration, plagues, and the like. We, like them, will be subject to the powers and tides of our times, and there is little to be done to avoid it or defy it. Nor can we move away from it, as the ills we recognize here are largely worldwide, inescapable, like seeing that Tsunami coming right at us and knowing that there is no high ground to run to.

The Tsunami/worldwide crash might even be the very cleansing purge of nature that is needed, but only those born on the other side of it have any hope of living out an age of new, natural liberties. Even that hope would be a slim one, and costly.

That being said, what more is there for a man to do, than dig his foxhole, knowing that it will be of no use at all, but to buy us a few more moments at best?

Anon. Don’t waste your time on T. She is impervious to logic and on any other forum would have been branded a troll. She has no desire to understand the situation from a male perspective and thus reveals that she is quite satisfied with the status quo which she brands “equal.” You are simply arguing with a duck that will predictably and consistently answer back every single time with a Quack!

Women in combat especially as infantry is an inherently dumb idea for an empire beset with exceptionally dumb ideas. . Heck todays load-outs are so heavy, that I as a strong male with an very strong back would be hard pressed to carry them day in and day out . I doubt any woman could carry them.

Also even things like 105mm shells can weigh 100 lb. There are women that can handle that weight but not for hours on end. This just reduces combat readiness.

There are military rolls useful for women logistics that sort of thing, most REMF/FOBBIT stuff and even a few “action girl” roles in real life for women, urban sniper in a home guard, espionage, police, detective , MP (where female prisoners are expected) but for the most part, women+ direct combat is something that a military will come to regret

Matt Strictland: As long as women demand equality through special privilege and special rules, they will not attain equality nor do they deserve any respect even for the things they may legitimately be able to do because of how they played the game to get that position. Women like to think they are gaining equality but in reality they are just losing respectability.

I wonder if you really intend to be as much an apologist for the laws surrounding abortion as you sound? I really hope not!

Everyone,
As to women in combat, someone made a comment about the deletrious effects that excessive physical training (such as that required for the military) may have on the correct functioning of a woman’s body. If a woman is not bothered about fertility, feminine appearance, etc, then fine, but given that many actually do, it is seriously counterproductive to force oneself to do what one is not designed for.

I am going slightly off-tangent here, but a one-time blogger, Bellita (now sadly no longer blogging) made a point a while back re her dismay at Catholic nuns who were demanding The Pill from The Vatican because they were at risk of rape from Congolese rebels when they were sent into Congo as missionaries.
Bellita (a Catholic woman who almost became a nun herself) made the incredibly insightful point that not only were the nuns wrong to be demanding The Pill (purely because they were NUNS!) but also, they were in some way sanctioning their own presumed and future rapes by mitigating the consequences of this crime against THEMSELVES.

Bellita’s point was that if there was such a high risk of rape for these nuns, they shouldn’t be asking to be sent to these dangerous places, full stop.
In particular, it is always a mistake to alter one’s nature to allow oneself to engage in activities that one is not designed for in the first place. Accidents happen. Women, including nuns do get raped in warzones. But is there a need to send more women into danger? Albeit armed with The Pill?

There was a hue and cry from the Catholic fraternity about this.
But Bellita, of course is making a common sense point.

There are jobs that women can do very well. Not better than men (why would this be?) but just as well, in many cases.

But any job which requires physical strength is always going to be done better by the average man than by even an exceptional woman. It just is.

Given that The Taliban, or whoever else the American military is going to be fighting next is NOT weakening their own military by putting women in the frontline, is it not easy to see that it would NOT be a common sense approach to have women in these positions? Am I being too simple-minded here?

I am sure there are lots of military jobs that women do very well.
But frontline? Not sure that’s wise in the long run…

namae nanka says:
“caster semenya who had some man parts had testosterone levels so high for a woman that she was disqualified. Her T levels still didn’t reach anywhere near an average man’s…”
I didn’t mean to suggest that women can achieve testosterone levels comparable with a man. Just that the ones who have a chance of making the physical demands needed for the military probably have a lot more than other women, and enough to make it unlikely that they have major female-ish monthly mood swings.

Cail Corishev says:
“How do they justify increased “guest worker” programs when unemployment is in the double digits?”
While most of your arguments are pointing out obvious absurdities, I think this one is different. Americans have become so entitled that they will expect unemployment for years before taking jobs they see as ‘below’ them. It doesn’t matter how many people are unemployed when they refuse to do certain jobs. We have to import people to pick fruit, drive taxis, and such because the long-unemployed Americans still refuse to do it.

T says:
This is a situation that nature made unequal. The law makes it as equal as practical without infringing on the right of men or women to control their own bodies. … I have about as much sympathy for men faced with unwanted pregnancy as I do for women who go into combat to their detriment. You knew, or should have known the deal going in. Why are you whining after the fact?”

T says:
“One can not assume that because a woman is pregnant and does not have an abortion that she in fact “wants a child”. She maybe deciding to go through with the pregnancy for other reasons. Even if one could make that assumption, Abortion being legal has nothing to do with the obligation of parents to care for any children that they have unless those parents both agree to give the child up for adoption.”

Bullshit. The law doesn’t make it equal at all. Did you read my comment at 4:25pm? (#comment-70288)
The law allows a woman to get rid of the child at any time, and could allow a man to ‘legally abort’ without changing the fact that he can’t physically do so. That would be equal, and not controlling of anyone else’s bodies. As for your lack of sympathy for men dealing with unwanted pregnancy, that goes both ways. Women knew what they were doing when they had sex too – and they do that biology more affected them. But they also knew they have all the legal power. Why should they get out of the consequences of their actions but not men?
As for ‘supporting a child once it’s there’, even if we ignore the fact that women can change the fact that a child is born while men can’t, they still don’t get equal rights. Once a child is born, the woman gets to decide whether to be a mother, whether the man gets to be a father, who has to pay, and all of it. If a woman wants, she can not tell the father about the pregnancy, not name him on the birth certificate, and give the child up for adoption, all without telling the father. She can completely remove his parental rights, and unless he manages to find out about it and sue for parental rights right away, before the child has been given away, he loses every right. And if he does manage to get the child, it would only be under some sort of law where the woman has no obligation to pay or anything – since, of course, she had given it up for adoption.
On the other hand, if she chooses to parent the child, she can demand the man pay for her to do so. If he would rather give the child up for adoption, but she wants it, she can garnish his wages in perpetuity – his preferences don’t matter at all. There’s no biology difference here, just a legal one in which women are not held to an obligation to their child once born, and men are.
Even without the biological differences in abortion, women are given all the rights when it come to children, and men get none. It would be extremely easy to make the law equal, but that is NOT what is done.

T says:
“@ anon – and I will say one more time that abortion being legal has nothing to do with the obligation of parents to care for their children. Both men and women can control their own bodies, both men and women are obligated to support any children that they have. That’s the law and it is equal.”
The law does not say that, and is not equal.
Men are obligated to support their child if the woman wants them to. Women are not obligated to support their child if they choose not to.

GT66 says:
“Anon. Don’t waste your time on T. She is impervious to logic and on any other forum would have been branded a troll. She has no desire to understand the situation from a male perspective and thus reveals that she is quite satisfied with the status quo which she brands “equal.” You are simply arguing with a duck that will predictably and consistently answer back every single time with a Quack!”
She certainly seems utterly blind to reason, but isn’t a troll. Trolls do it deliberately to get a rise out of commenters. I fully believe that she genuinely doesn’t understand the logic that’s being explained.

How it will all play out is mere detail, dependent on Providence and our opposition. Or, “We make plans and God laughs,” and, “No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.”

The questions are more basic than that. Do we want to stand and fight or (as Solomon suggests) flee? Do we have the resources to fight if we wanted to? What precisely is worth fighting over, and which are the insults we can honorably tolerate? And, most pressing in fora like these: To what end is all of this discussion? How will we know when the time for “jaw-jaw” is over?

Peace through strength. Being prepared to fight is the best deterrence against war. Dalrock writes, “This isn’t about putting women in combat, or even ‘proving’ that women can do it. This is about making sure there isn’t something special about men.” Just one more act of aggression in a long line of them. What are you going to do about it? What precisely are we going to do about it? Are we even prepared to do anything about it?

“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Does this talk make you nervous? Are you prepared for treason? If you are jealous of your liberty, you must always be prepared to entertain scary thoughts, or, according to Jefferson, to be “eternal[ly] vigilan[t].” Men fight and die simply to maintain this great gift from God, not just to establish it. Insofar as you, men, are ready to kill and sacrifice, you deserve the ease with which you have enjoyed these freedoms purchased by our fathers with their “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.”

Are there any men in our generation? Who will make preparations to fight — so that we will not be forced to fight? This is the pivot point of the “manosphere.” You have seen a resurgence of manliness improve your dating lives and your marriages. What other responsibilities do you have? Now we are poised on the brink of a great struggle, “testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” To which flag will you rally? To the loyalist’s or to the traitor’s? “If this be treason, make the most of it.”

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. …

They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? … Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? …

We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. …

Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? … Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. …

There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable and let it come. I repeat it, sir, let it come.

To be American is to be radical. A radicality in the Anglican tradition, tempered by respect for order, due process of law, and respect for God. The proper response to “democracy’s drift” into “soft despotism” is part of our inheritance. We are a nation born in defiance and, because it became necessary, blood. We are a people who honor a Law above man’s, which is why our republic persisted while France vacillated through five republics sparked by a very different kind of revolution. Our birthright is not the prosperity or even the liberty of this “last, best hope of earth,” but rather the ideas which provide for the flourishing of that prosperity and liberty.

The ingredients are always there, so long as we remember our origins. What we are in danger of losing, however, are the indispensable men who are required to keep it all operative. And if they went extinct during the last wave of feminism, we will have to recreate them.

Is that what we are doing here? Providing for the triumph of the next generation? Or are we gearing up ourselves to force confrontation so that our sons won’t have to? Are matters as urgent as our writing imply, or are we just blowing off steam? It’s important to scrutinize these issues, as they will lead us to action or inaction.

Spacetraveller: “Bellita (a Catholic woman who almost became a nun herself) made the incredibly insightful point that not only were the nuns wrong to be demanding The Pill (purely because they were NUNS!) but also, they were in some way sanctioning their own presumed and future rapes by mitigating the consequences of this crime against THEMSELVES.

Bellita’s point was that if there was such a high risk of rape for these nuns, they shouldn’t be asking to be sent to these dangerous places, full stop.”

I hope all the men here read this and realize the XX brand of “logic” that we are up against. This has to be amongst the stupidest things I ave ever read from a female. Read that comment closely. Think about the massive amount of cowardice in that statement.

So, cops shouldn’t carry guns because they are just sanctioning presumed and future crimes by mitigating the consequence of crimes against themselves! And TBH, the cops shouldn’t even be going where crimes are occurring in the first place. There are criminals there!

And of course, we shouldn’t get vaccinations because we are just sanctioning attack by disease and mitigating the consequence of illness. And, TBH, we shouldn’t even be where diseases are. We could get sick there!

That a fully adult, (presumably) educated person can espouse this sort of idiocy in all seriousness and actually garner agreement is what makes me fully believe the human race is run. We are now in full evolutionary regression.

The reason I find it very difficult to engage with you, GT66, is this:

You are rather quick to grab the wrong end of the stick. Every time.
This saddens me. Because you always manage to derail a good discussion.

I shall start again. If you are going to make a comment about my comment, please take the time to read my comment carefully beforehand. Or ask for an explanation if you don’t understand something (as I frequently do when I don’t understand something someone has said).

My point (and Bellita’s) was this:
(Bearing in mind that the topic at hand is ‘women in combat’).

It is counterproductive for women to be in combat because it necessitates an ‘adjustment’ of what Nature has given them/us.
The nuns going to Congo (albeit for noble/altruistic reasons) were having to ‘fix’ something about them (i.e. taking The Pill) to correct/allow for a potential risk to themselves that males going to the same place would not have to correct for.

Bellita asks (and so do I): Why not just avoid doing what you are not best placed to do?

This is an argument against women going into combat.

Do not use my comment as a platform for any debate as to the legitmate technological advances such as vaccination. Unless you truly did not understand my point, I would argue that this would be … disingenuous.

Spacetraveller, I cannot debate YOU because you can’t follow logical analogies. So you are a literalist and are ACTUALLY arguing women should not fight because they can be raped. THAT, is even dumber than the stupidity I already attributed to your comment.

So rape is the pinnacle of bad things that can happen in combat eh? And the act of preparing for that possibility, by taking the pill, is evidence that women are particularly unsuited to the purpose of combat? Seriously? Seriously?

“Do not use my comment as a platform for any debate as to the legitmate technological advances such as vaccination. Unless you truly did not understand my point, I would argue that this would be … disingenuous.” Jeez… This is why I don’t talk to women.

“And the act of preparing for that possibility, by taking the pill, is evidence that women are particularly unsuited to the purpose of combat? Seriously? Seriously?”

Actually yes!
Can you not see this?

Could a more eloquent commenter than me explain this to GT66?
Pretty please?

Note, GT66, that most of the commenters here are saying exactly what I am saying. I have just used a more extreme example than most, to illustrate exactly why women should not be going into combat situations.

But it really shouldn’t matter which examples we use to illustrate our respective points. If you and I both are against women in combat, why are we arguing against each other? Please explain, whilst refraining from calling me stupid, if at all possible…

Matt, “Is that what we are doing here? Providing for the triumph of the next generation? Or are we gearing up ourselves to force confrontation so that our sons won’t have to? Are matters as urgent as our writing imply, or are we just blowing off steam? It’s important to scrutinize these issues, as they will lead us to action or inaction.”

There is a process and a point that society must build up to to reach critical mass so to speak. Certainly, the comments b women here feed into that. Surely you see their level of “understanding” they care to engage in. That all works to a quote you made in your comment: “We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. …”

Women, like our old English rulers, seem to be oblivious to the end to come after the actions in your quote have been exhausted. Where are we in the process? Well, by virtue of the fact that a blog like this very one exists, I’d say we are beyond supplication. Are we at imploring yet? I’d say we’ve passed it and are moving to remonstration… The options remaining are dwindling.

Kai said:
While most of your arguments are pointing out obvious absurdities, I think this one is different. Americans have become so entitled that they will expect unemployment for years before taking jobs they see as ‘below’ them. It doesn’t matter how many people are unemployed when they refuse to do certain jobs. We have to import people to pick fruit, drive taxis, and such because the long-unemployed Americans still refuse to do it.

I believe you should be forced to work a minimum wage job, no medical insurance, and brutal physical labor for the rest of your life. Why? Because you aren’t to good for it.

“Note, GT66, that most of the commenters here are saying exactly what I am saying. I have just used a more extreme example than most, to illustrate exactly why women should not be going into combat situations.”

They are not saying that AT ALL. THEY are saying women are too weak to handle the job. PERIOD.

“But it really shouldn’t matter which examples we use to illustrate our respective points. If you and I both are against women in combat, why are we arguing against each other? Please explain, whilst refraining from calling me stupid, if at all possible…”

Do you know what preparations are made for going into war? You are taught how to fight hand to hand and via weapon to mitigate being killed. You are inoculated with various concoctions to help you survive chemical and biological attacks. You are taught how to survive against torture. Do these things the MEN have to do to prepare for combat make them unsuited to combat or is rape the only get out of combat free card?

Preparing for the possibility of an adverse event is NOT evidence of unsuitability but rather acknowledges that *shit happens.* This is why ships have life boats. Why airlines show you emergency exits on planes. This is your car has air bags that in all likelihood will never be used despite the substantial price you paid to have them there – just in case.

No, the argument people here have is not because female soldiers can be raped but because females just can’t do the job. War is a struggle of ABSOLUTE dominance based on superior ability. Do you think in combat that an enemy will fight with one hand behind his back to make it “fair” for his female enemy? Do you think that the enemy will stop and call in a woman to engage a woman on the other side in battle? No, he will jump on her and slit her throat and she will be dust. No laws. No white knights. No big Daddy government to ensure that “girl rules” are being played. NADA. It will be the most BRUTAL and unforgiving of bare knuckle fights and sure as fuck: women can’t do it. Rape, therefore has NOTHING to do with it because rape is not the least of a person’s troubles in that situation. It is unlikely that a female soldier that is fighting an enemy for her life is going to have much time to worry about if that enemy plans to rape her before he puts a bullet in her head. So where is the unsuitability in that scenario? In the potential that rape is one of the consequences of war she might suffer or the fact that a deliberately skewed ADMISSION system over run by ideologues at home has put the woman’s in a position where reality rules the day and where the ideologues cannot and will not come to her rescue and save her life?

“But it really shouldn’t matter which examples we use to illustrate our respective points. ” It ABSOLUTELY does matter because one way let’s women retain PRIVILEGE while continuing to enforce responsibility and consequences on men while never having to acknowledge that as Dalrock has said and the other way, establishes what men have been saying all along: there are two different realities for men and women. We are not the same and therefore cannot create the same outcomes and are there for not equal (in feminist terms of the word).

Sadly you are preaching to the choir. I absolutely agree that women are unsuitable for combat role, and in particular, do not match the strength of men. I have said as much already.
You are spitting fire at the wrong ‘un (as usual).

I could list all of the reasons why women should not go into combat. But I chose the specific example because actually, some here already mentioned rape, eg. Deti at 10.43 am Jan 25.

Others have listed other concerns such as the real possibility of pregnancy in a woman in the front line of war. On watching a news programme on this, someone mentioned about feminine hygiene and how that too could be managed in a combat situation.
Given that we are talking about women here, it makes sense to mention such female concerns, and exactly why they are real hindrances to women in combat.

You ask if rape is the worst thing that can happen to a woman in combat. No, death is, as it is for any soldier. But for a woman, rape is an *additional* risk, which is why people mentioned it. (For that matter, it is also a risk for men (prison seems not to be the only place where men can get sodomised) but we are talking here specifically about women in combat).

All of these are arguments against having women in combat. All of these are reasons why a woman cannot do this particular job as well as a man. I get that. I would have thought it was clear to anyone reading my comment that I get that.

“We are not the same and therefore cannot create the same outcomes and are there for not equal…”
Exactly my point!

I admit to needing the help of others to drive home the point to you that we are not in fact on opposite ends of this debate at all.

I mentioned to you once before: labelling a woman as a ‘coward’ is an ineffective insult. I am happy to be called a coward, unlike (most) men.
You calling me a coward is like me saying to you that you are not pretty.

But the ‘stupid’ insult was fairly effective. Bravo. I am hurting.
Us wiminz, we are emotional like that… :-)

Another argument as to why we shouldn’t be on the front line, wouldn’t you say?

Spacetraveller: “You ask if rape is the worst thing that can happen to a woman in combat. No, death is, as it is for any soldier. But for a woman, rape is an *additional* risk, which is why people mentioned it. (For that matter, it is also a risk for men (prison seems not to be the only place where men can get sodomised) but we are talking here specifically about women in combat).”

It is absolutely NOT an additional risk which you yourself immediately admit. The only ADDITIONAL risk the is pregnancy which, the NUNS in your previous example adequately planned for to which that blogger resoundly admonished them for doing and you agreed. Seems those NUNS no more about preparing for a fight than empowered wimmins posting their “wisdom” all over the internet..

In my state a University now has a vending machine that offers day after pills for students and staff. When it gets to the point that aborting an embryo is as easy as buying a bag of pretzels, I would no longer include pregnancy as a risk factor in any debate. So, in combat, I’d say they can just substitute the day after pills for the dessert in women’s MREs. Problem solved.

As to feminine hygeine, thems are the breaks. Look at what males endured in the trench warfare of WWI where their skin rotted off while they stood around waiting to die. This BTW was the war where feminists handed out white feathers to MALES on the street to shame them into joining the fight and die.

whatever says:
“Kai said:
While most of your arguments are pointing out obvious absurdities, I think this one is different. Americans have become so entitled that they will expect unemployment for years before taking jobs they see as ‘below’ them. It doesn’t matter how many people are unemployed when they refuse to do certain jobs. We have to import people to pick fruit, drive taxis, and such because the long-unemployed Americans still refuse to do it.
I believe you should be forced to work a minimum wage job, no medical insurance, and brutal physical labor for the rest of your life. Why? Because you aren’t to good for it.”
Huh?
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with aspiring to more. I think it’s logical that people don’t *want* to do certain jobs. I don’t want to pick fruit for a living either. I have a job that I like. But if I was unemployed, and the economy sucked, and I needed a job, I’d take what I could get. I expect others to take what they can get as well, rather than living off of working people’s subsidies. I don’t expect them to like the job, want to keep it for the rest of their life, or not continue to try to work up to a better job. But that’s not actually the point I was making.
The poster to whom I was responding complained that the US is importing ‘guest workers’, despite high unemployment. My point is that importing people to do certain jobs is necessary because it doesn’t matter how high unemployment gets, Americans are still choosing not to take those jobs. If we didn’t import workers who are willing to do those jobs, they simply wouldn’t get done – it wouldn’t mean more employment for Americans. My point was that his idea that bringing people in is somehow preventing Americans from getting the jobs these ‘guest workers’ do is flawed.

Kai: “My point is that importing people to do certain jobs is necessary because it doesn’t matter how high unemployment gets, Americans are still choosing not to take those jobs. If we didn’t import workers who are willing to do those jobs, they simply wouldn’t get done – it wouldn’t mean more employment for Americans. ”

Eh… you’re not thinking this through. There are several forces at work creating artificialities in your scenario.
1) “Guest workers” AKA: illegal immigrants are “allowed” to work those jobs in order to drive down the value of those jobs thereby driving up the employer’s profit margin. If illegals weren’t “imported” to work those jobs, those jobs would have to begin paying higher to attract regular Americans.
2) unemployment compensation is meant to be higher than what those jobs pay on purpose. IF as you claim, average Americans were driven into those jobs, they would immediately demand better pay and better working conditions thereby reducing the employer’s profit margin.

I’m not American, and don’t actually know the details of how some of those programs work. I am opposed to illegal immigration, but in favour of programs that provide legal ways to bring in willing workers to fill holes.
I had assumed that the ‘guest worker’ program mentioned was a deliberate legal one to allow in workers who have a job. if it was a euphemism for turning a blind eye to illegals, my mistake.
It might be a happy idea that jobs should simply pay higher to attract Americans, but I’m not convinced it will work as happily as you mention either. Americans have been importing other people to do their dirty work for ages. It used to be Irishmen and Slavs, now it’s Mexicans. But I don’t see Americans just deciding that fruit-picking would be great if only they paid more.
As for higher pay, if employers had to pay their workers more, they’d simply pass on the higher price to the consumer. If it didn’t work, they’d close up and go overseas, as do many industries. The small numbers of people who are willing to pay more for a product from a company who pays more to their workers suggests consumers are perfectly happy having immigrants do their labour. A lot more would have to change across the system before we could simply pay more to employ americans.
I’m not arguing against unemployment or its rates*. I’m just opposed to its length. If you pay into it as an employee, then can take out of it for a period while you search for work, that’s fine. The problem is when you are able to continue to get money over a long period of time while sitting and waiting for a job you like, instead of taking something that will pay the money you need.

*Actually, I am opposed to UI, as a person with sense can pay into their own savings account and draw out of it just fine, and I don’t need a government program to manage my money for me, but opposition to the program as a whole isn’t what I’m trying to argue here.

Kai rambled:
Huh?
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with aspiring to more. I think it’s logical that people don’t *want* to do certain jobs. I don’t want to pick fruit for a living either. I have a job that I like. But if I was unemployed, and the economy sucked, and I needed a job, I’d take what I could get. I expect others to take what they can get as well, rather than living off of working people’s subsidies. I don’t expect them to like the job, want to keep it for the rest of their life, or not continue to try to work up to a better job.

Kai says this because he is a stupid animal that understands nothing. He sees nothing and understands less. By the way, I wasn’t being COMPLETELY fair. I want him to be paid what the illegals are paid but ALSO HAVE TO PAY TAXES ON IT. If this leaves to little for him to share a tiny apartment, then he should live under a bridge. If he gets sick, then he should be allowed to die. No going to Mexico for treatment from a no good socialized health care system. If, for some reason the pay isn’t enough for him to feed yourself, then he should starve to death.

Kai: “I had assumed that the ‘guest worker’ program mentioned was a deliberate legal one to allow in workers who have a job. if it was a euphemism for turning a blind eye to illegals, my mistake.”

There is a a “guest “worker program (H1B) but that is not for those types of jobs you are mentioning. H1B intends to do the same though as illegals did to fruit picking. Companies bring in H1B workers to depress the wages of white collar workers in fields like engineering and computer programming as well as others. Generally thought, “guest worker” is a euphemism as you described. It is a sarcastic reference to the entire process of depressing wages in the USA with foreign workers for the purpose of improving corporate profits.

“Americans have been importing other people to do their dirty work for ages. It used to be Irishmen and Slavs, now it’s Mexicans. But I don’t see Americans just deciding that fruit-picking would be great if only they paid more.”

Yes and no. You don’t start as CEO of Apple ANYWHERE in this world. Generally, immigrants come in at the bottom and work their way up. The idea is that you start low but there are no barriers to moving up as quickly as your ability allows. This is different to say a caste system that you are born into and are unlikely to ever escape although the immigration situation comes really close to creating such a system in the US.

“But I don’t see Americans just deciding that fruit-picking would be great if only they paid more.”

Who would? It isn’t about thinking it is great versus bring home a paycheck. I doubt illegals think it is great work for the money either.

“I’m not arguing against unemployment or its rates*. I’m just opposed to its length. If you pay into it as an employee, then can take out of it for a period while you search for work, that’s fine. The problem is when you are able to continue to get money over a long period of time while sitting and waiting for a job you like, instead of taking something that will pay the money you need.”

This is a tricky situation and you would have to experience it to understand. First, the unemployment rates that you are paid are usually based on what you were earning in the job you lost. Therefore, taking a lesser paying job would mean termination of of benefits that pay more than the job you have. No one would make that decision. On top of that, people have mortgages and other bills that are usually in direct ration to their income. You are not going to support the house an engineer could afford on a McDonald’s job. So unless you walk away from your life, taking *any* job is not always an option.

Then there is getting hired. Low wage jobs take low skills people because they are easy to abuse and push around. Imagine some McDonald’s manager abusing pushing an engineer around. So, an employer sees your education and job and realizes: A) this person will be difficult to abuse and B) this person will be gone the second something better comes along. Why would some overworked under paid associate manager type choose to deal with this? They wouldn’t.

There are realities on the ground that belie the general impression of the casual observer at a distance.

Women should be proud to be bullet catchers for their slave masters, just like the big boys.

The upshot is, I’m seriously happy about this because it’s the end of U.S. World Hegemony. You just screwed yourself in zeeeee buttttt. A bunch of chicks dropping their guns and running away when the head concussions start ain’t gonna take over jack crap. And your drones can only get you so far.

Dalrock pointed out one of the main reasons for this policy – to attack a point of male pride.

However, I think there is a second major reason that one can see reflected in this thread. White males are being purposefully ostracized. First gays and now women. The average heterosexual white guy knows the military has become a place where he will have to walk on eggshells. The atmosphere will be stressful and no fun. This will have the planned result of white males dropping out and less signing up which is what the left wants.

This administration has told us that they view white militia groups as the greatest threat to them (the government) and they are probably correct. As the government becomes ever more tyrannical who is there to stop them? Women? Blacks and Hispanics? Obviously not. These groups are inclined to be subjugated to tyranny. This policy will reduce the number of white males who have the training to resist tyranny.

Even though I know this policy makes it harder I think it is more important than ever that white males join the military for the training and for those that are in to stay in despite this policy. You really are the last group the government fears.

We have to import people to pick fruit, drive taxis, and such because the long-unemployed Americans still refuse to do it.

Garbageman is a highly sought-after job in my town and most towns. Why? Because it pays well and has great benefits. If an employer can’t get people to work for him, he needs to pay more or make the job more appealing. It’s not a sign that we need cheaper workers.

Farm wages (and I come from a long-time farm family) have stagnated for decades, thanks to immigration, much of it illegal. If farm workers’ wages had simply risen along with everyone else’s and the cost of living, Americans would still be doing those jobs and making a decent living at them. (Incidentally, food wouldn’t be much more expensive, because farm labor is only a tiny part of the cost of food.) Let those wages catch up to where they should be, and people will take the jobs.

GT66 says:
“This is a tricky situation and you would have to experience it to understand. First, the unemployment rates that you are paid are usually based on what you were earning in the job you lost. Therefore, taking a lesser paying job would mean termination of of benefits that pay more than the job you have. No one would make that decision. On top of that, people have mortgages and other bills that are usually in direct ration to their income. You are not going to support the house an engineer could afford on a McDonald’s job. So unless you walk away from your life, taking *any* job is not always an option.”
It’s sure not a good option, but what’s the alternative? Obviously, a person who loses a good job wants to get a different good job. I’m understanding of UI paying out for a reasonable period of time to help the transition and be able to maintain their expected living until they get another job, but that assumes they are actively looking for another job.
If they can’t get another job of the desired type, that is where we seem to differ. I don’t think a person has a right to be perpetually supported by other working people if they can’t get another job of the type they’d like. If you can’t get another job, you should be cancelling your cable, cancelling your planned upcoming vacations, taking on a renter, or whatever else you need to do to survive on a lower income. that sucks to be sure, but the alternative is to suggest that they have a right to live the lifestyle they were living, and other people must pay to support it if they no longer can. I don’t think that’s an acceptable plan.
I have been lucky enough to not go through unemployment myself, but I have witnessed it closely a few times. I’ve had friends not bother to look for jobs seriously for 6 months, since why bother? EI has them covered! (And I am lucky enough to live in a place where a person who wants a job, even a professional one, can usually get one pretty quickly if they are not insanely picky.)
I understand why a person on today’s happy EI train wouldn’t take a lower-paying job and lose EI benefits, but I’d suggest changing the incentives. I don’t see any reason that getting a job as an engineer entitles someone to live the life of an engineer forever, supported by other people working.

whatever says:
“Kai says this because he is a stupid animal that understands nothing. He sees nothing and understands less… ”
And I’m the one rambling…
I appreciate the well-wishes. But do you actually have anything particular to say about what would better the system, or are you just in it to enjoy the idea of me having a miserable life?
None of us deserve anything, and we’re damn lucky to have the advantages many of us do have.

Cail Corishev says:
“Farm wages (and I come from a long-time farm family) have stagnated for decades, thanks to immigration, much of it illegal. If farm workers’ wages had simply risen along with everyone else’s and the cost of living, Americans would still be doing those jobs and making a decent living at them. (Incidentally, food wouldn’t be much more expensive, because farm labor is only a tiny part of the cost of food.) Let those wages catch up to where they should be, and people will take the jobs.”

I can agree that if the US completely stopped immigration, wages would probably have to go up. But has any first-world country ever done that? I just think it’s not a realistic expectation. Capitalism doesn’t seem to work that way, and never has. And the only other system anyone seems to have working to any degree is the socialist nordic countries – which aren’t normally thought of positively in the States.

Kai continues rambling:
If you can’t get another job, you should be cancelling your cable, cancelling your planned upcoming vacations, taking on a renter, or whatever else you need to do to survive on a lower income.

Bait and switch like a good little slut. Bait and switch. “Cancel cable” and WHATEVER ELSE YOU HAVE TO DO. Oh yeah. Bait and switch.

You know what, Kai the Unthinking and Unfeeling? I think it would be funny if your owners DID tell the TWENTY PERCENT of MEN between the ages of 25 and 55 to *bleep off* and “do what they have to do, or die”. Oh yes, Kai, let’s do that. Yes indeed. Let’s do that.

We have to import people to pick fruit, drive taxis, and such because the long-unemployed Americans still refuse to do it.

No we do not. People come here in violation of immigration law and obtain employment doing these things. As a general rule, their personal history and tastes are such that they are more readily recruited at given wage rates. The reason for this is as follows:

a. They are accustomed to lower living standards (in Mexico &c)
b. Their choices are more constrained and frames of reference are different. Native workers are not comparing wage rates to those in Mexico and are not as confined to occupational niches due to language deficits or the necessity to be a part of certain social networks in order to gain employment.

If the immigration law were enforced the following would happen:

1. Employers would make more vigorous efforts to recruit populations on site (i.e. offer higher wages).

2. There would be some reduction in the domestic production of the goods or services in question due to higher production costs (derived from higher wages or the replacement of manpower with machinery). In the case of price sensitive goods like fruit, some domestic production would be replaced with imports.

The effect would be some deadweight loss to overall production but with more equalitarian distribution of the benefits thereof.

You forgot some things I mentioned, I suspect cause you are an idiot.
a. They are accustomed to lower living standards (in Mexico &c)
b. Their choices are more constrained and frames of reference are different. Native workers are not comparing wage rates to those in Mexico and are not as confined to occupational niches due to language deficits or the necessity to be a part of certain social networks in order to gain employment.

C.None of the Above
D.They have free health care from the Emergency Room or they can just go back to Mexico. Americans pay about 3000 dollars AFTER TAX income for a “catastrophic only” health plan that has a 3000 dollar deductible. And does NOT cover your wife or kids. This is known as “sh*t”. It will consume around 1/5 of his after tax income. Note that the Mexicans wife and kids are covered by Mexico’s public health care system. Yeah, yeah, you are a mouthy f’ing punk.
E.Around 1/6 of his income will be consumed paying Medicare and Social Security taxes. This includes the employer side, as no, retard, the employer does not pay medicare or social security on his illegals.
F.The Americans family lives in rentier land and as such most pay hugely more rent than families in Mexico. This can be easily fixed by him never having a family though, so I don’t even know why I included it. Silly me. I must have lost my mind.
G.Only D and E, because F involves the insane expectation that the animal deserves a family. Which is absurd on the face of it.

I can agree that if the US completely stopped immigration, wages would probably have to go up. But has any first-world country ever done that? I just think it’s not a realistic expectation.

Ah, the “we can’t fix it perfectly, so we shouldn’t try” fallacy, right on schedule. It’s a load, though. We don’t have to stop immigration completely, and no one’s trying to (though a moratorium while we figure out what to do would be sensible). But there should be a lot of middle ground between stopping it completely, versus turning 20 million illegals into Democrat-voting citizens and encouraging 20 million more to come line up for the next amnesty. (Most people don’t seem to recall that the 1986 amnesty and reform was supposed to solve the problem for good and prevent exactly what’s happened. Things never change.) Just slowing the influx would be a good start.

It’s not complicated: enforce the laws, which already include serious fines for people hiring illegals. I know farmers within 10 miles of me who hire illegals. I don’t bother calling the cops because I know they don’t care — everyone already knows about them. Offer me a reward and tell that farmer he’s looking at a $50,000 fine per infraction, and he’ll hire Americans, even if he has to pay them a living wage.

That’s how we handle crimes we actually think of as crimes. We do our best to enforce them, even knowing that we’ll fail sometimes. When elected officials refuse to enforce the nation’s laws, or even try, there’s a word for that, it’s on the tip of my tongue, can’t quite think of it….

Kia, et al:
I’ve been listening to this mantra “jobs Americans won’t do” for 30 years now. I CALL BULLSHIT!!!!!
The list is always the same…busboy, fruit picker, short order cook, lawn care, then I think… wait a minute, I’ve done those jobs, and I’m American!
These sorts of low skill, entry level jobs were once the jobs of American teens.
I recall mucking horse stalls at a race track ( shoveling shit ) for less than a dollar per hour…but, hey, it was a job and I loved having my own money! I worked hard and the boss noticed and offered me a job busing tables at a restaurant, from there I was an apprenticed chef. I delivered papers, stocked store shelves, mowed grass, shoveled snow, tossed hay, repaired stock fences, mopped floors…all starting at age 10. My parents advice; comb your hair, put on a clean shirt, be there on time, work hard.

OK, let me understand this impending policy of the (currently) most powerful nation in The West:

) The PTBs know very well to NOT sexually integrate sports, any sports, even non-contact sports, but… they’re going to “try it” in thee most physically demanding, life-and-death critical arms of the military? Well, at least it’s based on reality, not some Marxist agenda. :roll:

) Shockingly, wimminz in the military are STILL allowed to have LONG HAIR, tucked up in a tight bun, ready to hard-snag on whatever cocking handle or useful protrusion most military hardware seems to be festooned with… and at the worst possible under-stress moment. This needs to stop like yesterday, and I don’t mean “biz-bob”, I mean male-short-and-shorn, i.e. whatever is (*wait for it*)… required for the guys.

We don’t even have hair-equality, and we’re going to have ability-equality? (Not to mention unit cohesion.)

) Men are naturally, genetically reluctant/resistant to follow a female “leader”, but Duh PTBs think a few decades of Femi-Kommissar-ism has “changed” that? OOOooo-Kaaaay…

PS: Someone mentioned fragging… ugly, ugly act, born of the real and immediate fear that someone on “your” team is about to get you killed in some especially useless or dishonorable way… expect more of it. :shock:

“This destruction of basic training was not done on purpose, but to accommodate the decision in the early 1990s to integrate men and women in basic training. For decades, male and female recruits got their basic separately. By putting them together it became obvious that the women could not compete physically and psychologically with the men. But a new policy, pushed by many in Congress, declared that men and women were equal on the battlefield and should take the same basic training. When the military found this did not work, they (with the exception of the Marines, who resisted the political pressure and continued separate training) lowered the standards to suit the weakest women. Much of the yelling and verbal abuse delivered by drill sergeants was also eliminated, for while it turned the men into disciplined soldiers, it encouraged too many women to quit. After all, women did not join the army with any thought of combat, but for a job. Most of the men did not get combat assignments either, but everyone was aware that in a tight situation the non-combat soldiers might actually have to use their rifles and the place to make that point was basic training. In effect, 1990a basic became the old, but kinder and gentler, female version that taught you how to wear a uniform, march in formation and provided some familiarization with basic infantry weapons.
“

I will not deny that foreign students can be bright, but faculty exaggerate their brilliance because foreign students are servile in doing work and favors for faculty and not demanding that professors actually earn their tuition keep. Moreover, faculty like that foreign students are either afraid, complicit or morally ambivalent about the immoral behavior of professors. In many cases they are more likely to share the professors’ anti-Americanism than American students. These ass kissers are absolutely not entrepreneurial, and they take the most bureaucratic and least innovative jobs.